


The Path Less Often Traveled

by Thebonemoose



Category: King Falls AM (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bittersweet Ending, F/F, F/M, Gen, Gratuitous use of italics, Hopeful Ending, Not Canon Compliant- Episode 100, Other realities, Time Travel, Trans Emily Potter, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-15
Updated: 2020-08-03
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:48:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 21
Words: 42,904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25289335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thebonemoose/pseuds/Thebonemoose
Summary: Emily woke with a start, and groaned at the pounding in her head that happened when she moved. She sat up slowly, squinting at her surroundings. She was at her desk in the library, and the door to her office was closed.A book lay open in front of her. A blue bound book, with no title on the cover.Emily slammed it shut. That had, admittedly, not been her finest idea. She sighed and ran a hand through her hair. A glance at the clock on her computer told her it was 11:39 PM.Stifling another sigh, she stood, and stretched as deeply as she could without moving from her position. Then she frowned, and bent down at the desk again, her eyes narrowing as they focused on the tiny numbers beside the time.April 29th, 2015.Oh, shit.Basically, Emily uses a semi-cursed book to try to help get Jack back, and it transports her to an alternate 2015. Some problems ensue.
Relationships: Ben Arnold & Emily Potter, Ben Arnold & Lily Wright, Ben Arnold & Sammy Stevens, Ben Arnold/Emily Potter, Emily Potter & Lily Wright, Emily Potter & Sammy Stevens, Katie Lynch/Lily Wright, Sammy Stevens & Lily Wright
Comments: 20
Kudos: 31





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Mothers and fuckers of the jury... Welcome. To my twisted mind.
> 
> Just kidding, it's a time travel au. A few things:
> 
> Firstly! Emily is trans in this, and I am not trans. Sooo if you are, and you notice anything you feel should be changed, please let me know and I'll be happy to take a look :)
> 
> Secondly, at the time of posting, all 20 chapters have been written, and I just need to edit them. The goal is to post one a day until we run out, but that ~may~ get derailed. We'll see.  
> Also! The title is from The Curse of The Fold, by Shawn James.

Emily yanked the floorboard up with a groan, falling backwards as it came free. Dust clouds swirled around her, and she coughed slightly, peering down into the cavity she had just exposed. It was small, less than a square foot in area. 

But no matter. She had found what she was looking for. 

With an almost giddy grin, she reached inside and pulled out an old, dusty book. It was a hardcover, bound in light blue fabric, without any title or author on the front. She was pleased to find that it still seemed fairly sturdy in spite of its age, and she would not need to take as many precautions as she feared when she was carrying it. 

Emily clambered down the attic steps after replacing the floorboard and stowing the book in her bag. She flashed a smile at the old woman who waited for her at the bottom. 

“Did you find what you were looking for?” she asked kindly. 

“I did, as a matter of fact,” Emily replied, landing on the floor. “Thank you, really. You have no idea how helpful this was.”

The old woman just waved her hand. “Nonsense, sugar. I just hope you kids find whatever it was you lost,” she said, turning to hobble back to the living room. She began clearing up the dishes from the coffee they had earlier, and Emily rushed to help. 

“Thank you, baby,” she cooed, and Emily shrugged. 

“It’s the least I can do.”

As soon as the last dish was washed, the woman turned to Emily. “Alright, hon. I’m afraid I have to insist you get on home to your friends now. Y’all should really get started on that project you were telling me about,” she said.

“I-- I will, Doris, thank you. I’ll visit soon, okay? Let me know if I can bring you anything from the library,” Emily replied, walking towards the front door. “Oh! And next time, you’ll have to give me that banana bread recipe, alright?” she smiled. 

Doris chuckled and gave Emily a kiss on the cheek. “Of course, sugar. See you later. Safe travels!” she waved Emily off, and shut her door while Emily got in her car. 

She placed her bag on the passenger seat and stifled a grin. This book could be a game-changer. 

_The only thing,_ Emily thought, backing out of Doris’ driveway, _is that now I have to tell the others. And somehow find a way to do it so they won’t get mad at me._

**GROUP MESSAGE: Lily, Ben, Sammy**

**Emily: Family meeting when you guys are off work.**

**Emily: I have… big news.**

**Sammy: More than slightly concerning, but ok.**

**Ben: omg Em what did you do**

**Lily: [side eye emoji]**

Emily heard the front door open, and three pairs of feet shuffle inside. Various jackets, hats, and bags were deposited at the entrance, and then they walked to the living room, where Emily sat, barely containing her nervousness. 

“I’m worried already,” Ben stated plainly, then leaned down to kiss Emily. He took a seat on the couch. 

“What have you got us into this time, Potter?” Lily asked with a raised brow, and stretched out beside Ben. 

Sammy greeted Emily with a hug, and a suspicious glance towards the bag in her lap, then he sat on the ground, facing Emily. 

Emily looked out at their expectant faces and tamped down her nervousness. Ben’s reaction would be the worst, she knew, but Sammy and Lily could be wild cards, too. 

“So,” she began, swallowing thickly. “You remember how I mentioned that hypothetical book? Kind of a cousin to Death By Damnation?” she began, then cringed at the three incredulous expressions her companions wore. 

“Emily, tell me you did not do what I am afraid you have done,” Lily said lowly. 

Emily let out a breath. “I… didn’t? It’s not as bad as you’re expecting,” she prefaced, and Lily did not appear placated. 

She continued. “I did some more research on it. It’s a-- I don’t know, ‘book of power,’ I guess, but it’s not… evil. Not like Death By Damnation is evil. It isn’t exactly _good_ \-- That is, it’s neutral. It’s… it’s a tool.”

“Emily, what did you do?” Ben asked, grimacing as he did. 

“I tracked it down to an old woman’s house and convinced her to let me look in her attic, where I found the book.”

Sammy groaned and put his head in his hands. Lily sighed and leaned back, and Ben just deflated. 

“Look, just-- feel it, okay? You’d be able to tell if it was evil. It feels _nothing_ like DBD.” Emily removed the book from her bag and passed it to Ben, who fumbled with it and immediately tossed it off to Lily, as if he were playing hot potato. 

“Emily! Don’t just drop cursed books in my lap please!” he nearly screeched, and Lily held it up by its spine, eyeing it with distaste.

“Huh, you’re right. It really does feel like nothing at all… Wait, hold on.” she frowned. “Actually, I don’t know if that’s entirely accurate. Give her a whirl, Sammy,” Lily said, and handed it to Sammy. 

He held it in his hands for a moment, hefting it back and forth. He frowned. “It feels… Like it has potential?”

“Like you’re sitting at the top of a rollercoaster, waiting for the drop,” Emily filled in, and Sammy nodded. 

“Yeah. Exactly.” Sammy gave the book back to Emily. 

“Look, I support the lead-finding, but Emily-- that was a terrible idea,” Lily said. “You know how dangerous it is to go looking for things like that on your own. Anything could have happened.”

Emily nodded, sighing. “I-- you’re right. I know it was reckless, but I just-- I felt desperate. We’re not _ready_ , you guys. The time is rapidly approaching and we’re nowhere near prepared. We need… We need a leg up.”

Sammy scrubbed a hand across his face. “You really think this book is going to get us there?” he asked.

Emily looked down at it, and nodded.

Sammy blew out a breath. “Alright. I’m in. Lily?”

Lily nodded. 

“That just leaves you, Benny,” Emily said quietly. Ben looked at her a moment, his face uncharacteristically blank. He held out a hand, and Emily placed the book in it. 

Ben furrowed his brow as he seemed to measure the book, feeling it out. He looked up at her again, and handed back the book. “If we die and become apparitions, I’m not going to talk to you for like, five years,” he said at last, and Emily let out a relieved sigh. 

“Thank you, Benny,” she said earnestly, and he looked away, but she didn’t miss the red that tinged his cheeks. 

Emily glanced down at the back, moving her hand along the blank cover. “Does anyone object to me reading it now? I haven’t— I haven’t opened it yet.”

After a few glances and murmured go-aheads, Emily began to read. 

As she did, it slowly occurred to her that she did not speak whatever language this was written in, nor did she understand it’s twining, intricate script. Even so, she was reciting it perfectly— something she knew intrinsically.

Emily knew the words she was saying were part of some long-dead language or other, though her brain couldn’t perceive them at all. All Emily could hear was the ambient noise of their home; the clock ticking, the A/C blowing softly. She continued to read, but before long her tongue began to feel heavy, as did her limbs. Her spine began to curve, bending forward as if it could no longer bear to hold her up.

She looked towards Lily and Ben, and saw that they were in the same odd position. Sammy, too, was almost folded in half in his spot on the floor. She hadn’t looked at the book in several moments, yet still her mouth spoke the words written inside. 

Her eyelids drooped, and she felt nauseous and dizzy. Emily tried to grab the arms of her chair for support, but she found that her hands could not leave the book. She gripped it, her fingertips and knuckles white, and tried her best to resist the urge to close her eyes.

She failed. The last conscious thought she had was that this had all been a very, very big mistake. 

Emily woke with a start, and groaned at the pounding in her head that happened when she moved. She sat up slowly, squinting at her surroundings. She was at her desk in the library, and the door to her office was closed. 

A book lay open in front of her. A blue bound book, with no title on the cover. 

Emily slammed it shut. That had, admittedly, not been her finest idea. She sighed and ran a hand through her hair. A glance at the clock on her computer told her it was 11:39 PM. 

Stifling another sigh, she stood, and stretched as deeply as she could without moving from her position. Then she frowned, and bent down at the desk again, her eyes narrowing as they focused on the tiny numbers beside the time.

April 29th, 2015. 

_Oh, shit._


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Emily makes her way home after waking up in 2015.

Emily glanced around her office, and was pleased to find her bag on the floor beside her desk. She opened it and rifled around inside. She pulled out her keys and wallet with an “a-ha!” and opened up the wallet, taking out her driver’s license. 

All the information was correct, thankfully, and she recognized the address. She pocketed her keys, and put the blue book and her wallet back in her bag. She drew the blinds in her office and locked it, then glanced around at the empty library. Most of the lights were off, and nobody else was inside. With another cautious look, she turned off the rest of the lights and locked up the library.

Her car was the only car in the parking lot, about 100 feet from the entrance. Emily took a breath, her keys positioned like claws between her fingers, and started walking. King Falls was safe as far as muggings went, but Emily had gotten into the habit of caution after she was abducted, and… Frickard. 

She could, in all likelihood, hold her own against a human attacker. She did not know if the same could be said against a paranormal threat. 

Emily shined her phone flashlight through the windows of her car, and unlocked it when she was satisfied that nothing was going to jump out at her as she drove. She locked her doors immediately after sitting down, and let out a breath. It was possible she was being overly cautious.

But then again.

Better safe than held captive by a freaky pseudo-scientific cult. Or an unholy shadow demon. 

It was a mercifully quiet drive home, and Emily smiled as she unlocked her apartment. She hadn’t lived there in almost three years, but it had been one of her favorite places. She tossed her keys on the credenza at the entranceway, and locked the front door behind her. 

After kicking off her shoes (then nudging them into a neat row lining the wall,) Emily glanced up, and saw a mirror that she didn’t remember having. 

That was… strange. She _was_ in the past, wasn’t she? Could she just be misremembering?

Emily studied her reflection. She’d never gotten a haircut like this before.. She pushed her hair behind her ears, and found that she had a helix piercing in both ears. Another difference, then. Three inconsistencies. 

_One might say that constitutes a pattern,_ she thought. 

Her reflection looked back at her, tired but young. The last five years had aged her more than she realized. She tore her eyes away with a sigh, and walked to her bedroom. She threw her bag on the bed and went through her nightly routine, then dug around in her dresser for some nightclothes. 

Her face and teeth now clean, Emily made her way to the bookshelf in her room. She bypassed all of her actual books in favor of the variety of blank journals, located at the bottom shelf. She pulled one out and grabbed a pen from her bedside drawer, then settled in bed. 

If she had time travelled, she should write down everything she remembered from the way she did things the first time, in order to prevent potentially devastating temporal consequences. Not that she really knew anything about that-- as far as she was concerned, her entire method of approaching her current situation was one big shot in the dark. 

That was probably how most of her life could be described, though. One big shot in the dark. 

If, however, she had not only time travelled but somehow _also_ been moved to a parallel universe, then writing down her previous experiences could be useful for another reason entirely. She had no guarantee that she wouldn’t begin to forget her original timeline. 

Plus, she wanted to keep a record of every difference she noticed between her original experience and the current one. 

She clicked her pen, and began to write. It took several hours, and Emily had to take more than a few breaks to massage her cramping hand, but she eventually managed to condense five years into about one hundred pages. Her journal was over halfway filled by the end of it. She allowed herself a few more minutes to jot down what few differences she had observed so far, and then closed her journal, tossing it gently on the ground beside her bed. 

She was thoroughly exhausted-- mentally, emotionally, and physically. Almost as soon as her head hit the pillow, she was out. 

Emily dreamed of her family-- of Ben, and Lily, and Sammy, all safe in the home they shared. There was someone else there, too. A man with black hair, and brown eyes. He turned to look at her, an unreadable expression on his face. Emily frowned, and Ben, Sammy, and Lily all disappeared. She extended her hand towards the man-- so familiar and so distant all at once. He smiled sadly at her, and Emily felt a vague sense of panic threading through her. She kept her arm out, begging him to take it. He shook his head, and turned away as she began to run towards him, but the dream dissolved before she could reach him.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Emily attempts to be as normal as possible, in spite of her displacement, and a visit is paid to Tim and Mary Jensen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i almost didn't post this today bc im stupidly tired BUT i persevered for all 2 of my adoring fans xoxo

Emily awoke slowly, her body aching. She turned her head, expecting to see Ben sleeping peacefully beside her. He wasn’t there, of course. The previous night came flooding back to her at once, and she turned over with a groan. Her mouth was dry, and she reached out for her water bottle on the bedside table, eyes still closed. 

She drank greedily, and nearly choked a few times. She sat up, coughing slightly, and wiped her mouth on the back of her arm. Her phone buzzed, and Emily grabbed it, staring blankly into the bright screen. The notification she received wasn’t important; just a sales email from a candle shop. The time, however, _was_ important. She was ridiculously late for work. 

Emily sighed and resisted the urge to flop back in bed and sleep for twelve more hours. She somehow found the motivation to get up and shower, and, after grabbing her bag and making herself a _very_ strong coffee, she drove to work. 

The library was already open, thankfully. She rushed in, an apology already on her lips. Her coworker, Olivia, just shrugged and shook her head. 

“Don’t worry about it, Emily. You’ve done enough for this place, and we’re not even open for the public yet,” Olivia said kindly. “You can be as late as you want, as far as I’m concerned.”

Emily sighed in relief. “Thank you, Olivia, seriously. You’re a lifesaver.”

Olivia grinned. “If you think you love me now, wait until you see what I brought you for breakfast.”

Emily could’ve wept. “You brought breakfast?” she asked. 

Oliva nodded her head towards Emily’s office, and Emily walked inside. Standing there, staring at the large, blueberry muffin sitting pretty on her desk, she really did feel tears welling up. 

She exhaled carefully, and was painfully reminded of the fact that she hadn’t eaten yet. Before she devoured the physical evidence of Olivia’s sainthood, however, Emily sat down at her desk and wrote out a heartfelt thank-you note, ignoring the forming calluses on her fingers. 

She delivered the note to Olivia and rushed back to her office for some alone time with the huge, beautiful muffin that nearly sparkled in the early morning sunlight. Emily heard Olivia chuckle at her note, and call out “No problem, Emily!” in reply, but she was in no position to respond, seeing as her mouth was full of a delicious baked good.

With breakfast eaten, Emily drew her focus to the immediate future: namely, what her plan was. It dawned on her, then, that she could very well be alone in this time. There was no guarantee that anyone else had time-travelled, or dimension-hopped, or _whatever_ along with her. Maybe she was missing, back home. Maybe Ben was tearing himself apart to find her, yet again. 

Emily braced herself against her desk, and shook her head. She could not afford to think like that. If she was alone, she had to be strong. She had to find a way to get back home. 

First move: figure out if this was actually an alternate universe, or if she’d time travelled, and had a worse memory than she thought. 

She turned on her computer. After only a few minutes of research, she was convinced. All the evidence she found was small, fairly insignificant. A well-known celebrity dying a month earlier. A bestselling book with a slightly different title. 

As small and easily overlooked as the inconsistencies were, there were so many of them. There was a part of her that insisted that human memories were fallible, and false memories occurred all the time, but she stamped it down. That was true, but Emily was not in a position for scholarly skepticism. She needed to trust herself. 

Emily sighed and put her head in her hands. At least she could be (relatively) certain that she really was in a parallel universe. That was one thing to cross off the list. Proposed next item: figure out where Lily, Sammy, and Ben were, and if they remembered her. 

Emily was about to get up and drive to Ben’s old apartment, but she realized suddenly that today was April 30th. Sammy’s first show was tonight. It was also the night that Tim Jensen would be abducted.

 _Alright, new plan,_ she thought. _Go to Mary’s house, and beg her and Tim both to stay home tonight._

Emily rushed out of the library with a hurried explanation to Olivia and sped to the Jensen house, praying that their address was not one of the things that had changed between universes. 

She was lucky; Jensen was still the name hand-painted on their quaint white mailbox. Emily parked beside the street and knocked anxiously on the door. It was a Thursday, thankfully, so the kids should be at school or daycare. 

The door opened, and Mary looked out from behind it. Her face had yet to take on the constant weary expression it wore since Tim’s abduction. Hopefully, after today, it never would. 

“Hello?” Mary said, confused but polite. 

Emily opened her mouth, and was struck with the realization that she had no idea what she was going to say. After a few moments of wide-eyed floundering, she settled on, “Hi. Um-- you don’t know me, but my name is Emily Potter. I’m the new head librarian,” she said, and faint recognition shone in Mary’s eyes. Emily continued. “I have something insane to say to you, but I swear upon threat of death that it is the truth.” 

Mary frowned, and began shutting the door. 

“Mary, wait!” Emily said, desperate, her hand on the door. Mary froze. 

“What the hell do you want?” Mary asked suspiciously. 

Emily let out a sigh. She really should’ve rehearsed what she was going to say. “Look-- I know that was really… intense,” she began, and Mary did not appear impressed. “But just-- _please_.”

Mary seemed to search her face, her brow still furrowed. After a moment, she opened the door just wide enough to allow Emily in. “You’re lucky the kids aren’t here,” Mary said. 

“Thank you, thank you,” Emily breathed, and Mary led them to the living room. Emily sat, while Mary flitted around the kitchen for a few moments. She came back with two glasses of iced tea, and passed one to Emily, who suppressed a smile. Mary was hospitable as ever, even when confronted by an intense stranger. 

“Alright, say your piece.”

Emily nodded, clutching the sweating glass of tea. “Well… You and Tim have lived here your whole lives, right?” she said, and knew instantly it was the wrong thing to say. 

“How do you know so much about my family?” Mary said, her voice dangerously low. 

“I… I can explain that. But first, will you tell me if that’s accurate?” Emily asked. 

Mary nodded. “We’re King Falls stock, alright.”

“So you’re familiar with the… quirks that King Falls has?”

Mary narrowed her eyes. “Quirks?”

“You know, like… Kingsie. The apparitions. Big John. This town has more than its fair share of weirdness,” she explained. 

Slowly, Mary nodded.

“Well,” Emily said, wishing she had _any_ physical evidence to back up the outrageous claim she was about to make. “Tonight, when Tim is on the way to work, he will call into a radio show and tell them that he is seeing rainbow lights in the sky. A UFO. Tim will be abducted, live on the radio.”

Mary looked at her for one long, heart-wrenching moment. Then she scoffed, and gently took the iced tea from Emily’s hands. “Get out of my house,” she said evenly, and Emily let out a shaky breath. “ _Now,_ ” Mary warned, and Emily obliged. She hurried out of the house and heard Mary slam the front door behind her. 

Emily unlocked her car and quickly got inside. She closed her eyes and took a breath, then hit the steering wheel hard with both hands. “Damn it!” she yelled, and put her face in her hands. 

Emily did not bother returning to the library. Once home, she texted Olivia that she was coming down with something, and she wouldn’t be back that day. Olivia didn’t seem to mind, and Emily flopped down on her bed. Despair crept in, and Emily could not stave it away any longer. What she wouldn’t give for a hug from Sammy, or Ben’s hand in hers, or Lily’s comforting warmth against her side. Emily gave in, and her hopelessness settled over her like a blanket. Eventually, her sobs quieted, and she fell into a restless sleep. 

It was dark when she woke up, and her cheeks stung from dried tears. She sat up and rubbed her neck, checking her phone for the time. 

May 1st, 1:57 AM. Sammy’s first show would be on in a few minutes. Emily stood, and looked around for her radio before remembering that she hadn’t bought one yet. She sighed, and grabbed her car keys. 

_660 on the radio dial,_ she thought, and sat in her car. Sammy’s voice came through her car speakers, directly after Chet’s Jazz Corner ended. God, he sounded young. It was hard to believe he’d lost Jack only a few months ago. 

Emily chuckled as Ben censored Sammy almost immediately. His bleep was delayed; he hadn’t yet put in enough hours with Sammy and his foul mouth to give him the necessary trigger finger skills. 

She missed her boys.

Emily almost allowed herself to be lulled to sleep by the familiar sounds of Sammy and Ben’s voices, but then she heard Tim Jensen, and she was pulled right back in. Her anxiety climbed as Tim described the rainbow lights, and panic tinged his voice as the lights whirred around him. Hearing his voice-- helpless and afraid as he was taken-- brought her back to her own abduction, and the deep, gut-wrenching fear she had felt as she drove, desperately trying to outrun the lights. 

She had recognized how similar their abductions were, of course. But hearing his in real time, as it actually happened-- it got to her. It affected her in a way she hadn’t anticipated. Emily switched off the radio. Tim was gone. He would not be back for months. She had failed to save him. 

Emily returned to her apartment and cried until she fell asleep.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Emily does a bit of research.

Emily awoke to a banging noise at her door. Her heart jumped in her chest, and a plethora of worst case scenarios darted through her mind. She stumbled out of her bedroom and pulled her front door open, blinking against the sunlight that streamed in. 

Mary Jensen stood in front of her, wearing the same clothes from yesterday. Her makeup was smudged, and she had tear stains on her cheeks. She gripped a baseball bat in her right hand, and was looking at Emily with a fury that she’d never seen in Mary.

“What the _hell_ did you do to my husband?!” Mary demanded and Emily stepped back, her hands raised placatingly. Mary walked in, slamming the door shut behind her. She brandished the bat threateningly, and Emily kept walking backwards as Mary approached. Emily’s back hit the wall, and Mary narrowed her eyes. 

“Mary, wait. Listen. I didn’t want this to happen, okay? I tried to warn you!”

“You knew! You knew this was going to happen! How did you know?!” Mary shrieked, still waving the bat around. 

“I’ll explain everything, okay? But you have to put the bat down first,” Emily replied, as soothing as she was able. 

Mary looked her in the eyes, her own burning with pain and anger. Then her hand wavered, and the bat clattered loudly to the floor. All the fight seemed to leave her at once, and Emily caught her just before she collapsed. Emily helped her to the couch, and gently placed her on it. She sat nearby, but still far enough to give Mary her space. 

“Tim’s going to be okay, Mary. Your family will be together again, okay?” Emily told her, and Mary just looked at her, exhausted. 

“How do you know these things?” she said. “You knew he was going to be taken. You _knew_. How?”

Emily sighed. “What happened to Tim… Also happened to me.”

Mary stared at her with wide eyes. 

“Or… it will happen to me?” Emily grimaced. “On May 1st, 2016, I... was taken by the same UFO that took Tim.”

Mary looked at her. “Oh, God!” she said, then dissolved into a fit of laughter. She guffawed loudly, and buried her face in her hands. Emily did not know when her hysterical laughter turned to sobs. 

“You’re crazy,” Mary sniffed, wiping a tear off of her face.

Emily sighed. “Think about it, Mary. How else would I have known?”

“I don’t know! Maybe you’re a part of it!”

“Mary, you know this town is weird. You understand that. Now, it’s gotten weirder. Darker. But this abduction is not the last abduction. It is not the only hidden evil in this town.”

Mary sniffled. “What?”

Emily groaned. “Okay, look. I’m-- I’m trying to do something here, okay? I was, essentially, sent here, from an alternate future, to, to-- I don’t even know what. But even though this 2015 and my 2015 have differences, it’s the same where it counts, right? Meaning your Tim got abducted, just like the Tim from my past got abducted. And the Mary I know, the Mary I am friends with? She got her Tim back. Her family is together. You’re all together, and alive. I’m not going to lie, Mary, it’ll be difficult getting him back. But Mary? No matter what, you don’t have to do this alone,” Emily told her. 

Mary just looked at her, her eyes scanning Emily’s face. 

Emily continued. “I know where Tim is. Sort of. But I do definitely know who took him.”

Mary gasped, and reached out, clutching at Emily, a wildness in her face. “Tell me,” she begged. 

“No, you’re just going to go over there with a match and a gallon of gasoline and take matters into your own hands,” Emily said, covering one of Mary’s hands with her own. “Here’s what you’re going to do, okay Mary? You’re going to go home. Be with your kids. Think about what I said, and whether or not you believe me. And I’m going to do anything I can to help you get Tim back, okay? I’m going to help you.”

Mary nodded, looking a bit overwhelmed. Emily helped her to her car, and handed her the bat. “Oh… sorry about that,” Mary said sheepishly, but Emily waved it away.

“You’ve been through a lot, lately. I get it,” Emily replied. Mary gave her a small smile before she got in and started the car. 

She watched as Mary drove away, and tried to ignore the heavy flow of anxiety she felt. She knew it was probably dangerous to ‘tamper with the timeline’ or whatever, but still. She couldn’t just leave Mary hanging. And she wasn’t going to stand around idly while the people she cared about were hurting. She wasn’t the One for nothing, after all. 

Emily went back inside, keenly aware of the less than three hours of sleep she’d had. She unplugged her phone from its charger by her bed and typed out a message to Olivia, saying that she was still under the weather.

Emily was not a fan of lying in any circumstance, but especially not to someone as thoughtful and genuine as Olivia. She sighed, and pressed send. Her rationalizations and excuses did nothing to quell the guilt that settled in her stomach like a stone. 

Emily spared a longing glance to her comfortable bed, but did not go back to sleep. She grabbed her bag and took the book out, still a bit wary. On the one hand, it was responsible for her current (absolutely bonkers) predicament. On the other, it was the only real lead she had. And if Ben and Sammy were _her_ Ben and Sammy, they would likely have told each other, and contacted Emily by this point. They would not have gone through their first show exactly the same as the first time. 

Emily made herself a tea, settled on the couch, and opened up the book. She frowned.

The first time she read it, she had definitely not been able to understand the writing. Now, though, she could read it perfectly, as if she’d studied this language for years. Emily flipped through the other pages, peering at them in a mix of curiosity and suspicion. She was able to read the entire thing, it seemed like. It was definitely not written in English, or even using the Latin alphabet, but that didn’t seem to matter.

“That’s fucky,” she muttered, one eyebrow raised. 

She continued reading until she found the last place she remembered reading to the first time. The meaning was vague, but parts of it reminded Emily of the prayers she’d read in her History of Religion class in college. 

The idea that this book was potentially the last remnant of an ancient religion sent a chill down her spine. Not just because she was excited as a librarian, but also because she was in King Falls, and accidentally resurrecting an ancient god was not necessarily out of the realm of possibilities. 

She read for several hours more, and eventually made it to the last page. Her head was swimming with the contents of the book, and it almost made her dizzy. She was glad she hadn’t stopped, though. If she had, she wouldn’t have discovered what the book _was._

That is, she wouldn’t have realized that Ben, Lily, and Sammy had all come with her. They were here, but they couldn’t remember. The excerpt she had read out was something similar to a spell; the goal was to have all members of a party recite it aloud, and they would be-- well. 

Basically, they’d suddenly find themselves in a parallel world, as Emily was. Whether or not it was created just for this, or if it had already existed, Emily did not know, and the book did not explain it one way or the other. 

The reason a group would perform the spell was to give themselves an opportunity to practice for a ritual. It could be nearly any ritual, as far as Emily knew, but typically was used for those that required a large amount of energy and had high stakes. Like resurrections. 

Or possibly bringing lost souls back from the clutches of malevolent shadow beasts. Whichever.

The book had stated that the spell wasn’t often used for small rituals because of the spell's stipulations; namely that all members had to be intrinsically bound. This was rare, apparently. 

Emily had felt a surge of pride when she read that. What she and her friends had was special. 

Because the other participants didn’t have access to their memories, Emily’s first move was to find a way to jog their memories, or otherwise fill them in on what the fuck was going on in this town. 

_Alright, new plan: remind three people who do not have any memory of me of all the traumatic things we’ve gone through in the past five years, figure out a way to save Jack, proceed to save Jack, go the fuck home. Easy peasy._


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Em contacts some friends.

Emily had decided the night before that it would be too painful to try to convince Sammy or Ben that she was telling them the truth. She couldn’t bear to see their blank expressions, without a shred of recognition for her or their shared history.

That meant that Lily was first up. Emily usually took Sundays off, so she thankfully did not have to lie to Olivia again. She had a quick breakfast, then grabbed her journal (now filled with notes from the blue-bound book) and sat in the park. It was a nice day, not too hot yet, and Emily would rather not spend another full day alone in her apartment. 

She’d found Lily’s number last night. She was glad she’d double checked instead of just calling the number for Lily she had memorized. Apparently, Lily had a different number in 2015. In her journal, Emily had written a small script, intending mostly to intrigue Lily enough to come to King Falls and meet her. 

Emily was not deluded enough to think it would work, but she had to try. She pressed ‘call’, and as the line rang, Emily reminded herself that Jack had only been gone for five months. Lily was, in all likelihood, barely keeping it together. 

“Hello?” Lily said, and Emily’s heart dropped. She hadn’t prepared herself for how it would feel to hear her. 

“H-hi,” Emily said.

“Oh, great. Don’t tell me another creepy fan got ahold of my personal number,” she sighed, and Emily panicked. 

“No! No, sorry. That’s not… That’s not what this is,” she said. 

“Then what? A scam? Telemarketing? You gonna try to trick me into giving you my social security number?” 

Emily refrained from saying that she actually already knew Lily’s social security number. “No. That’s not it, either.”

Lily sighed. “Who is this?”

“My name is Emily Potter. I’m a librarian in King Falls,” Emily answered. 

“Well, then--wait. You say you’re from King Falls?”

Emily almost nodded. “Uh- yes. I did.”

Lily was quiet for a second. “Why are you calling me?” Lily asked eventually, her voice carefully even. She was getting angry, Emily knew.

“I need you to come to King Falls,” Emily answered. 

Lily chuckled darkly. “Yeah, and why’s that?”

Emily remembered her script. “Because it would be perfect for Wright On. It’s got a ton of interesting history. There’s even a lake monster,” she said. Lily sighed. “And,” Emily added, hating herself, “a man was abducted by a UFO a few nights ago.”

“What, you want me to come and do an episode about your town? Is that it?” Lily said patronizingly. 

Emily was not offended. She just felt… discouraged. The past few days had been hellish, and to be honest, Emily just needed someone in her corner. She hadn’t expected Lily to drop everything and come to her, but truth be told? She was barely keeping it together.

“Fuck, Lily, I don’t even know what I’m doing, you know? I fucked up, okay, and now none of you even remember me, or the past five years, a-and I can’t talk to Ben or Sa-- _somebody else_ about this because he doesn’t even remember me, and it would just hurt too much, alright? And now I’ve clearly tanked my chance to get you out here, so frankly, I don’t even know what I’m still doing on the line with you. Do you know how frustrating it is to know _exactly_ what needs to be done and have no fucking way to do it?” Emily was breathing heavy.

The line was quiet. “Yes,” Lily said finally, like she was considering something. 

“Y...Yes?”

“I do know how that feels. Look, lady, I don’t know what your deal is, but whatever it is, I’m a hell of a lot more interested in that than in your weird town,” Lily said, and Emily did not bother pointing out that she was lying. 

“Oh,” Emily replied. 

“Tell me more about this… ‘memory’ thing, will you?” Lily asked. Emily sighed. If that was what it took, she supposed. 

“Well,” Emily began, deciding that the truth was probably her best bet, “Some friends and I did a spell, right? Only we did it wrong. That was in the future, by the way. Five years. Anyways, now I’m stuck in an alternate past, and so are my friends (of which you are one), and now I need to find some way to jog all of your memories, so we can save-- um, so we can find a way to get to our proper time. Also, you’re likely thinking that I may have some sort of mental illness, which, while a fair assumption, is not true. Please don’t try to have me institutionalized.”

Lily laughed. “Fair enough. So...you claim to know me?”

Emily rolled her eyes. “Yes, I do ‘claim.’” 

“What did you say your name was again?” Lily asked.

“Emily Potter.”

Emily could almost hear Lily’s grin through the phone. “Well, then, Ms. Potter,” she said. “Is this number a good way to contact you?” 

Emily had no idea how much she’d missed Lily’s casual flirting until she had to do without it. “Yes,” she replied almost giddy. 

“You’d better make this worth my while, Ms. Potter.”

“I will,” Emily responded, nearly breathless with her relief. Lily hung up after a vague promise to keep in touch, and Emily sat back on her bench, feeling both weightless and heavy at the same time. In any case, she’d made progress. 

She held the corner of her phone to her chin as she thought, her brows furrowed. One down, two to go. That was something, at least. She still wasn’t sure what the best way to approach Ben and Sammy was, though. Circumstantially bumping into Sammy at the grocery store? Emailing Ben about the library opening? 

Emily sighed and stared into the distance of the park. Parents were walking with their kids along wide sidewalks, and joggers and cyclists competed for space on the pavement.

Emily’s mind drifted to Ben again. It had only been a few days, but she missed him. Hearing his voice over the radio the night before last had been surreal. She couldn’t get over how different he had sounded. 

_Speak of the devil, and he shall appear,_ she thought, because who had walked in front of her at that moment but Ben himself, his nose buried in a notebook, a pen perched behind his ear. 

“Ben!” Emily called, without thinking. He looked up and around, his eyes wide and almost owlish. She recognized his expression as the one he wore when his focus had been interrupted. 

“Y-yes? Do I know you?” He asked, confused, and closed his notebook with a dull _thwap!_

 _Oh, shit. Right._ “Uh— no, sorry. You don’t. My name is Emily, I’m the new head librarian,” she explained, and proceeded to shake the hand of the man she was vaguely planning on proposing to, ignoring the distant noise of her heart fracturing a little. 

“Oh! Right! Well, hopefully you’re better than the last one,” he said snidely, and she chuckled. His eyes widened at the sound, and she recognized the tinge of pink coloring his cheeks.

_She loved him. She loved him, she loved him._

“Yeah, I’ve heard… interesting things about my predecessor,” she replied, a small smile on her face. 

He snorted. “That’s certainly one way of putting it. Hey, actually— would you be interested in going on King Falls AM and doing an interview about the library’s renovation? I’m the producer,” he explained.

Emily didn’t hesitate. “Oh, I’d love to!” 

He beamed, and Emily had to remind herself that this _particular_ iteration of Ben was _not,_ at this moment, her boyfriend, and so she could _not_ just kiss him senseless anytime she felt like it.

“Oh, um, here, let me give you my number,” he said, and dug around in his pockets for a pen.

She reached up and produced the one behind his ear.

“Oh. Thanks,” he chuckled, and she couldn’t help but smile at him fondly. He scribbled his number on a sheet from his notebook and tore a piece off, handing it to her.

“Just let me know when you’d be free to come in and do an interview,” he said. “Oh, and don’t worry about coming in late to do it live— we’ll just record it in advance,” he smiled.

“Actually,” she began, “I’d love to do it live.”

His eyebrows raised, but he grinned. “Uh— sure! Sounds good!” He placed the pen behind his ear again. 

Emily was pleased. “Perfect,” she said. “See you soon.” 

She walked away, and was upwards of eighty percent certain that Ben was staring after her with a love struck expression. 

Some things never change, after all.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Emily meets Ben and Sammy, and has a tense rendezvous with Lily.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Long one for ya today :)

Sitting in Ben and Sammy’s office, waiting for her interview with them, Emily had a very justified feeling of deja vu. 

Meeting Sammy again had been particularly weird. She’d longed to grab his hand and hold it tightly, to tell him that he wasn’t alone, that he didn’t have to pretend around her. That he was safe. But she didn’t. 

Instead she said hello, and that it was nice to meet him, and he was as professional as ever. Well, as professional as he used to be, anyway. 

They left to do their intro, and then Sammy returned to bring her to the recording area. Emily laughed as Ben proceeded to be very obvious about his burgeoning crush on her, and Sammy proceeded to be very smug about it. 

She told the boys (and the town at large) about the library’s upcoming reopening, and ignored how utterly odd it was to be doing this all again. Ben did his best to impress her by reciting town history, and Emily had to quell the fondness that arose with each word.

She answered all of the callers’ inane questions about the library and tried her best not to visibly cringe at the sound of Frickard’s voice. 

It had been a few weeks since Sammy’s first show, and Tim’s abduction. Sammy was as quietly skeptical as he ever was, to Emily’s simultaneous comfort and chagrin. Ben and Sammy’s friendly work relationship was slowly but surely expanding into an actual friendship, just as it had the first time around. Emily took that as a good sign. 

After Emily left the recording area, she lingered in the doorway of their office. Sammy emerged not long after, holding an empty cup of coffee in his hand. He startled slightly when he saw her. 

“Oh! Hey, Emily. I thought you’d left,” he said.

She shrugged. “I was about to, but I wanted to know if you guys wanted to go to Rose’s Diner with me after you’re done with the show,” Emily asked.

Sammy’s eyebrows shot up. “S-sure! Yeah, I’m sure that _Benny_ would love that,” he answered.

Emily pretended not to notice his pointed inflection. “Great. Meet you guys there?” She asked, and Sammy nodded, a wide grin on his face.

She waved goodbye, and he promptly turned around and went into the recording booth, coffee forgotten. The last thing she heard before the door shut was “oh my _god,_ dude, she _/likes_ you!” 

Ben stammered. “Wh—come on, Sammy. No she doesn’t. Why? What did she say?” 

Emily chuckled as she walked to her car. Later that day she needed to meet up with Mary and discuss their in-progress plan to get Tim back. But for the time being, she was going to go home, sleep for a few hours, and wake up in time to have breakfast with her boys. 

Emily bit her cheek to keep from smiling as Sammy’s dinky little hybrid pulled into Rose’s parking lot. Before Sammy had even turned the car off, Ben was already unbuckling his seat belt and clambering out of the car. He nearly bounded up to where she was leaning against the brick wall, then beamed. “Hi!” he said cheerfully. 

“Hey, Ben. How was the rest of the show?” she asked as Sammy walked up to them, his hands deep in the pockets of his jean jacket. She recognized that jacket. It was the one he always let her borrow, because Ben’s was too tight for her.

“Good. Dr. Raoul had some very interesting comments on spinal health,” Sammy replied drily.

Emily snorted. “Glad to hear it,” she laughed. “Shall we?” she nodded towards the diner.

Ben opened the door for her, and Emily grinned at him. Sammy tried to follow immediately after, but Ben shoved him out of the way with his elbow. 

“Ow! Oh, so you’ll hold the door for her, but not for me?” Sammy asked, and Ben sucked in a breath. 

“Oh my god, Sammy, shut _up_ ,” Ben replied. 

They were led to a booth, and Ben and Sammy sat on one side while Emily took the other. 

“So,” Sammy began as they glanced over their menus. “Are you new in town, Emily?”

She scrunched up her nose. “Sort of? I’ve lived in King Falls before, but only for a few years when I was younger. We moved when I turned thirteen, and this is my first time being back since,” she answered. “How are you liking it, so far?”

“It’s great,” he told her. “Everyone’s been really nice so far--”

Ben coughed. “Well…”

“Alright, _mostly_ everyone.”

Emily laughed. “And Ben, you’ve never been a cohost before, right?”

Ben shook his head. “I have not. And glad of it, because if I had to cohost with Chet Sebastian, I would probably just quit,” he laughed. 

“Aw, I’m a better cohost than Chet Sebastian,” Sammy cooed sarcastically. Ben elbowed him in the ribs. 

“High praise indeed,” Emily replied.

A waitress came and took their orders, interrupting the conversation. Ben changed the subject when she’d left. “So Emily,” he started, leaning forward. “Has anyone seen anything particularly weird or paranormal in the library as you all have been preparing to open?”

Emily wracked her brain for some clue as to what he was referring to. There had just been so _much_ , she wasn’t sure what he was talking about. “Um,” she said, using her straw to stir lemon juice in her water, “there’s been a few things, here and there…”

Sammy made a face. 

“What’s the matter Sammy? Don’t believe in the supernatural?” she joked. 

Sammy shrugged. “Well, they do say truth is stranger than fiction,” he said, noncommittal.

Their food arrived not too long after, and their table was quiet except for the sounds of satisfied chewing. Ben excused himself to the bathroom, and Sammy looked at her for a moment. Emily’s pulse picked up, unsure of what he was thinking. 

“You don’t have to answer this,” he said slowly. 

Emily dreaded and desired the question in the same instant. 

“--But when we were talking with that guy, Greg,” he said, and Emily tensed up immediately. One look at Sammy told her she had seen it. “You... tensed up, like you did just now. Can I ask-- do you know him?”

Emily debated lying, but she could see the concern present in Sammy’s face, even though from his view, they were basically strangers. “I-- kind of,” she said. 

He raised an eyebrow. 

“A few years back, he… He hurt some people I care about. He did and said horrible, hateful things. I’m sure he doesn’t remember me at all, but I know that I will never forget him. And I never want to speak to him again.” Her hand had tightened into a fist atop the table.

Sammy placed his hand over her fist. “I’m sorry,” he said sincerely, his eyes filled with sympathy. Anyone who didn’t know him as well as she did would have missed the sadness hidden there, too. 

Emily thought again about what Sammy had done-- would do?-- for the Jensens. His sympathy and concern for Mary Jensen was so genuine because he had felt her pain, her sorrow, her grief. He bore it wordlessly, all alone. 

Emily uncurled her hand and squeezed his hand lightly. “Thanks, Sammy,” she responded, and tried to put as much meaning behind her words as she possibly could. 

He smiled, and pulled away. 

Ben came back then, and sat down. “What are you guys talking about?” he asked cheerfully, taking another sip of his coffee. 

Sammy glanced to Emily, and she didn’t miss a beat. “You,” she said to Ben, and enjoyed watching the slight pink rise on his cheeks. 

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Sammy raise an eyebrow. 

“Don’t listen to anything Sammy tells you about me, it’s all lies,” Ben laughed. 

Emily chuckled. “No, no. Only good things,” she finished softly, and caught Sammy’s gaze. HIs brow was furrowed, but he didn’t call her on her fib. 

The rest of their breakfast was blissfully uneventful, and several times Emily had to remind herself that Sammy and Ben did not remember her. It was so much harder knowing that they were _her_ Sammy and Ben, and they had been through all the things the three of them had been through together. They just… couldn’t remember. 

When breakfast was over, Emily walked them to Sammy’s car. “Get some sleep, boys,” she said kindly, and waved them off. 

She made her way home and did some paperwork for the library, keeping an eye on the clock for her meeting with Mary. When it was 2:30, there was a knock on her door. Emily opened it, and Mary hurried inside. 

“Hi,” she said breathlessly, her face pale. 

“Mary? Are you alright?”

Mary waved her away. “I’m fine, I’m fine. Just…a bit paranoid, lately. I keep thinking about what you said about King Falls.”

“Oh,” Emily said dumbly. “Sorry?”

Mary sighed. “Don’t worry about it. I’m just… I love this town. It’s home. And it’s… not _safe_ , if what you’re saying is true. But, let’s- let’s not get into that, right now. I just… I need to know about Tim.”

Emily exhaled. “Let’s sit, shall we?”

Mary took a spot on the recliner, and Emily took the couch. 

“Will you tell me who has him?” Mary pleaded, and Emily shut her eyes. 

“Mary…”

“I know you don’t trust me not to do anything rash, and that’s-- well, that’s fair. But Ms. Potter, please,” Mary said, her expression painfully earnest. “I need to know what’s happening to my husband.”

Emily caved. “Okay. Alright. It’s not… It’s not pleasant, so just… be prepared. And the most important thing to remember is that they need him alive, alright?”

Mary’s face turned even whiter at that, and Emily almost regretted saying it. 

“Tim is… well, he’s probably in a white, clinical room. And there are probably lots of machines and things running tests and scans on him. He’s asleep for most of it. Any memories he will have will be foggy, hard to grasp,” Emily said, and felt herself doing her best to put distance between herself and her words. Her memories of her own abduction. 

“When he does wake up, he will be in pain, and scared. But he won’t be awake for very long. He will never see any other people, but the ones doing this to him? They are as human as you and me, Mary. It wasn’t aliens who took him. It was the Science Institute.”

Mary’s mouth opened. “Wha-- that huge cult building on the edge of town?” she asked incredulously. 

Emily nodded. 

“What do they want with my husband?!” she demanded.

Emily groaned under her breath. Best to rip off the bandaid, right? “They want to make an identical robotic clone of him to help them carry out their nefarious plans.”

Mary’s expression was hard to describe, but the closest Emily could come to was “equal parts disappointed, disbelieving, and disillusioned.”

“It happened to me, too. The cloning, not just the abduction. The robots are crazy advanced, Mary. Like, ‘could-be-in-a-superhero-movie’ advanced,” she explained. 

“W...why?” Mary said, looking overwhelmed. 

Emily frowned “Why…?” she prompted.

“Why would they do that? _How_ could they do that? I-- this is all so…” Mary grappled for a word. 

“Insane?” she supplied. 

“Batshit.”

Yeah. That was a fair assessment. 

“I don’t know, honestly. I do know that Howard Ford Beauregard cannot be trusted, neither can the sheriff or the mayor. There’s a lot of high-ranking, powerful individuals in King Falls who don’t really care about the people of this town,” Emily muttered darkly. 

Mary’s face fell. 

“Hey,” Emily said, and Mary glanced up. “There’s still good people here, too. Why do you think I choose to live here, in spite of everything that happened to me here?”

“If there’s good people here, where are they?” Mary asked brokenly, and Emily’s heart went out to her. 

“They’re everywhere, Mary. You just have to know where to find them,” she answered. 

Mary left soon after, and Emily wished she had more to give her. She would’ve given anything to have one of Ben’s notebooks on deck for Mary.

Still, it only made her more determined to succeed in returning her friends’ memories. 

Even if it did break her heart a little every time she tried. 

The library had been open for a few days, and there had been surprisingly few apparition encounters. Emily was locking up after a busy day when her phone rang. She fished it out of her jeans on her way to her car, and accepted the call. 

“Hello?” Emily said.

“Ms. Potter!”

Emily almost dropped her phone. “Lily! Hi! Hi.”

“Aw, am I making you nervous?” Lily almost purred. Emily just laughed. 

“Excited is more accurate. _Don’t_ make an innuendo out of that,” Emily warned, and Lily chuckled. 

“If you insist. Anyways, I’m in town.”

Emily really did drop her phone then. She caught it before it hit the ground, and then leaned against the window of her car. “You what?!”

“Well, I’m in Big Pine. But close enough.”

Emily was having trouble focusing on the warring emotions in her chest. Obviously, this was good, because she could convince Lily that she was sane, and they could start working together. But that also meant that if Emily failed, she could screw up her chance to get Lily on board forever.

Lily seemed to take Emily’s stunned silence as a cue to continue. “I’m calling to find out when you’re free to meet up,” she explained. 

“Tomorrow,” Emily said in a rush. “I mean-- tomorrow’s my day off,” she clarified. “Where?”

“Big Pine. There’s a coffee shop I want to try. I’ll text you the address.”

Okay,” Emily replied breathlessly. “Wait, what time?” 

“10 AM.”

It would probably be very busy at that time. It was understandable that Lily would want to meet her in a busy public place, though.

“See you then,” Emily said. 

“See you then.”

The line went dead, and Emily got in her car. Her phone buzzed a moment later with the address of Lily’s coffee shop. Emily drove home feeling nervous and excited, anxiously anticipating the morning to come. 

“I’m glad you decided to come,” Emily said, running her finger around the rim of her coffee mug. 

Lily raised an eyebrow. “Why’s that?”

“I need you,” Emily answered plainly. 

Lily smirked. “Buy me dinner first, Ms. Potter.”

It hadn’t been as awkward as Emily had expected, meeting up with Lily. She should have known, though. Lily was a good journalist; part of that meant being easy to talk to-- even if it was a facade. Judging by her behavior, however, Lily was not in Big Pine on official Wright On business. 

“You didn’t bring your team?” Emily asked, and Lily narrowed her eyes. Damn, she’d made her suspicious. 

“No,” she answered. “I wanted to satiate my own curiosity, not worry about how to make a podcast episode out of this.”

“Really? I’m that interesting to you?”

Lily shrugged. “It’s not every day some random woman calls you on your personal number and makes outrageous claims about you.”

“I’m sure you could make a podcast episode out of that,” Emily said. 

“I probably could. But I told my team to stay, against their wishes. By the way, my producer thinks you’re stalking me, and have lured me to King Falls to psychologically torture me before ultimately killing me and stealing my skin to make a dress out of.”

Emily grimaced. “Ew.”

“The point is, if you do or say anything that gives me any sort of bad vibes at all, I’m out, and if you try to contact me again after that, I’ll make your life a living hell,” Lily said, her voice carefully monotone against the clamor of the coffee shop. 

“I understand,” Emily replied, unfazed. “I’m not going to murder or stalk you, though. Scout’s honor,” she said, holding up three fingers in a salute. 

Lily snorted. “You were a girl scout?” she asked, halfway disbelieving. 

Emily made a split second decision. “Boy scout,” she said simply. 

Lily just shrugged and took another sip of her tea. “Fair enough.”

Emily hid her smile with her coffee mug. 

“Alright, Potter. Tell me what your deal is,” Lily said suddenly, leaning back in her chair. 

Emily bit her lip. She’d been dreading this. “Promise not to try to have me institutionalized?”

Lily raised an eyebrow. “Scout’s honor.”

“So… essentially, I’m from an alternate future. One where you came to King Falls with Wright On after it had been heavily requested by your fans that you do a King Falls episode. You didn’t buy into the paranormal stuff, naturally, but you uncovered a secret or two anyways. One of the other reasons you came to King Falls was… was Jack.”

Lily’s eyes snapped to hers, her gaze sharp and steely. “What the hell do you know about Jack?” 

“A lot, Lily. Because you’ve told me about him. And we’re trying to get him back.”

“Get him _back_?” Lily asked incredulously. “Back from where, Potter? My brother’s dead.”

“No, Lily. He isn’t.”

Lily pushed her chair out abruptly. “I’m leaving.”

“Lily, wait! Sammy’s in King Falls, too!” Emily cried, and Lily froze. 

“What,” she said dangerously low, “the _fuck_.”

“Please just sit, I’ll explain everything,” Emily begged. Lily sat, but she didn’t try to mask the hatred on her face. 

“Sammy came to King Falls because Jack was obsessed with it before he disappeared. You remember how he was with spooky stories, Lily. Hell, maybe he even told you about it. This town… something in it called to Jack. Over and over. And then it took him. It has him still Jack is still alive, Lily, but he’s-- he’s trapped. And you, me, Sammy, and our friend Ben are going to save him.”

Lily just stared at her, expression impassive. 

“I was trying to find a book to help us get him back, but when I read it out loud to the three of you, we were all moved here, to a parallel reality. I did it _wrong_ , that’s why none of you can remember me.”

“You have serious mental issues,” Lily muttered darkly. “You stalked me. You hacked into my phone, my computer-- I don’t know. But for some reason you’re obsessed with me, and my _dead brother_ , and I’m leaving.” Lily stood, and began to walk out. 

Emily followed after. “Lily, wait!”

She kept going, exiting the shop. 

“Lily, stop! Lily!” Emily shouted, grabbing Lily’s arm to stop her. Lily whirled around, grabbing Emily’s shoulder tightly and pushing her against the wall of the alley beside the coffee shop. 

“Don’t you _ever_ come near me again, got it?” Lily spat, her nails digging into Emily’s shoulder. 

“Agh! When you were twelve you had a crush on the life guard at the public pool, and that’s the first time you thought maybe you were gay!” Emily said in a rush. 

Lily’s eyes widened, and her grip loosened just a touch. “How did you know that?”

“You _told_ me!” Emily insisted. “I have more. Your first kiss was at fourteen, with a nice boy in your class. He was a perfect gentleman when you went out for ice cream together, and you let him kiss you on your front porch. Then you went inside and cried yourself to sleep.”

Lily swallowed thickly. 

Emily continued. “Need more proof? You told me that when you first met Sammy, you didn’t even want to introduce him to Jack because you liked spending time with him so much, and you had never had a male friend you could truly be yourself around before him. So when Sammy and Jack finally met, and they hit it off, you felt jealous. And then soon enough they were closer friends than you were with either of them. And it tugged on that old fear you always pushed down. That you were always going to be left alone. That nobody would choose you. And then they moved to LA, and again, you felt like you were proven right. Your best friend, and your brother. If they didn’t want you, who would?” Emily was crying as she finished. 

“Shut _up_ ,” Lily insisted, but it came out weak. Emily was getting through to her. 

“Why would you tell me that, Lily? How could I possibly know that? I couldn’t, could I? Not unless you trusted someone so implicitly that you would willingly reveal to them your worst fear. Not even Pippa knows about that, does she, Lily?” Emily asked gently. 

Lily let out a shuddering breath and released Emily. She shut her eyes and swallowed thickly, then took a seat on the ground. Emily didn’t hesitate to join her.

“Who the fuck _are_ you, Emily?” Lily asked, wearily. 

“I’m your friend, Lily,” she said softly. 

Lily laughed, but there was no humor in it. “You shouldn’t know all that. I wouldn’t tell somebody that.”

“You’re not the same person you were.”

Lily leaned her head against the wall. “I keep trying to rationalize, to think of ways that you’re wrong, or delusional, or-- _something_.”

“Sorry,” Emily said. “Didn’t mean to disassemble your worldview at,” she checked her watch,”10:32 AM.”

Lily groaned. “Is it really only 10:30? Fuck, I need a drink.”

Emily grimaced. “Um… about that…”

Lily glanced over.

“It’s probably a good idea to cut back on the drinking,” she said, as delicately as she could. 

There was no response. Emily looked over to see Lily standing up and dusting off her pants. She extended her hand to Emily, and pulled her up. “We’re going back to my hotel. Come on, you’re driving.”

Emily did not protest as Lily led her to the coffee shop’s parking lot, and wordlessly unlocked her car so Lily could get in. They did not speak on the drive except for when Lily gave her directions. 

Lily took her up to her hotel room, still without speaking. She unlocked the door and pushed it open, and beelined for her suitcase. She pulled out a fifth of whiskey and poured two fingers into a hotel mug. 

Emily sighed. “Lily--”

Lily held up a finger and downed the mug.

“God, Lily.” 

“Oh, don’t worry, Potter. It’s the cheap stuff,” Lily said, and winked. “Alright. Proceed with your tale.” Lily flopped on the bed, and Emily took a seat at the tiny table in the corner. 

“What do you want to know?” Emily asked. 

Lily shrugged. “Everything.”

“Like… Like _everything_ everything, or…?”

Lily put her head in her hands. “Ugh, just… When did you get ‘here’? To this time and place?”

“Alright, I woke up after that spell I told you about, and I was at my desk in the library. It was eleven at night on April 29th.” 

“And it was 2020 before you left?”

Emily nodded. 

“Fuck, that’s not a real year,” Lily grumbled quietly. “Alright. So five years, basically. Start at April 2015, the first time.”

Emily blew out a breath. “Okay… I _can_ do that, but it’ll take, like… a while.”

“Fine, Cliff’s Notes version, then.”

Emily shook her head, a bit helplessly. “Alright. Um… May 1st, Sammy’s first radio show with Ben Arnold. Nothing that interesting happens, except that Tim Jensen got abducted by the rainbow lights.”

“‘The rainbow lights’? Is that like a euphemism for coming out?”

“Unfortunately, no. They’re Triangular UFOs with rainbow lights that kind of… beam down. They abduct people and then make robot duplicates of them. Happened to Tim Jensen and I both.”

Lily scrubbed her face with her hands. “Uhhhhhh… I regret my entire life. Every choice I have ever made has been incorrect. Continue.”

“That’s pretty much it for May. June, Rich McGuff’s body was found in Lake Hatchenhaw, also some business with werewolves.”

“Oh my god, I hate it here.”

“In… Big Pine?”

“No, planet Earth.”

Emily stifled a laugh, and continued to tell Lily all the relevant information of the last five years. Unfortunately, that meant a lot of details about Sammy and Ben, which Lily clearly did not want to hear. It also meant a lot of details of King Falls weirdness, which Lily… _also_ did not want to hear. 

Eventually, though, some of the darker, more sinister aspects of King Falls came through, and Lily seemed eager to hear about them, even as she made it clear she didn’t buy into any of it. 

She was also very sympathetic as Emily recalled her abduction, and offered Emily a break, which she eagerly agreed to. They ate a quick lunch, and Emily continued. She spoke about Ben’s scary but admirable, single-minded drive to get Emily back, and surprisingly, Lily didn’t say anything when Emily brought up how Sammy must have felt hearing Ben talk about losing her.

And then the plan to get her back, the unexpected two-for-one deal on abducted townspeople, and the ensuing, absolutely unfortunate involvement of Greg Frickard. 

Lily looked disgusted on Emily’s behalf when she mentioned him, which Emily appreciated. 

She spoke about the continued political intrigue, the threat in Perdition Woods, and finally, Lily herself. 

“Ben was really into Wright On, and he was so stoked to interview you. Sammy, was not, as you could probably imagine. Ben sort of set up a phone interview without telling him, so Sammy… immediately hung up on you.”

Lily snorted. 

“So, right, August of 2017, that’s when you and Pippa and Mike-The-Intern came to King Falls, and started working on the King Falls Chronicles. Oh, also that year was the manhunt for The Dark.”

“The Dark?”

“Yeah, did I forget to mention him? The Dark is King Falls’ vigilante. He’s Ben’s old friend, Dwayne Libbydale.”

“Fucking…. shit. I hate this town.”

Emily told Lily more about the continued mysteries in Perdition Wood, as well as the Himinist conspiracy. 

“Himinst? Like bargain bin Meninists?”

Emily shrugged. “I guess. It was really the dumbest thing I’d ever seen. Also, you and Sammy have had a few on-air spats over the phone. That’s important.”

“Okay?”

Emily continued. “Then...February of 2018, Frickard sent in a commercial to the boys’ show, proposing to me. The boys and Greg had a long, hostile discussion, wherein Greg tried to insist that me punching him was an accident (side note, _it wasn’t_ ) and then accused Ben and Sammy of gaslighting me.”

“He WHAT?!”

“I know. It gets worse, though. Sammy and Greg kept arguing, and Greg… he brought Jack into it.”

Lily’s gaze hardened. “What the fuck did that creep know about my brother?”

“Very little, honestly. He was throwing darts in the dark, all he knew was that you and Sammy and Jack used to all be close. But anyways, Sammy was understandably upset, and he destroyed some radio equipment, because what Greg said was really, really horrible--” Emily sighed.”Ben and Sammy… They thought they weren’t on the air anymore. Their equipment was broken, the lights were off-- they didn’t _know_.”

Lily looked at Emily, her eyes wide. “Emily, what happened?”

“Ben and Sammy had a very long discussion, on the air, about… About Jack. And Sammy. And who they were to each other.”

Lily said nothing, she just looked down and sighed. 

“It...If it was that hard for me hearing it on the radio, these people whom I love, _hurting_ , and _suffering_ , I can’t imagine what it was like for Sammy to go through that.”

“I hate the guy, but em>damn.” 

Emily tutted. “You don't hate him, Lily. You never could.”

“I don’t know, Potter, my hate’s a powerful thing.”

“He’s a part of you, Lily.”

She looked away. “Awfully bold to assume I can’t hate parts of myself.” 

Emily didn’t bother responding. “Sammy told Ben that he was leaving King Falls that night. He was going to stay until May 1st, and then he was going to leave. He did try to leave, on May 1st. His friends set up this huge last show for him and Ben, but Sammy was late. Ben and Troy and I did our best to stall-- that’s actually when we got together,” Emily said, smiling. 

“Gross,” Lily said flatly, but there was a twinkle in her eye. 

“But then there was a call from a man named Walt, and he had saved Sammy’s life. Sammy was in Perdition Wood, right by the Devil’s Doorstep. Walt sacrificed himself so Sammy could keep going. Then Cecil Sheffield, who was the vessel, and had been in a coma, called in, but actually it was Debbie using him to call in. So I was mad at Debbie, and started asking why I was the Unwritten One, but Debbie explained to us that Sammy had tried and failed to close the gateway. He also failed to enter it. 

“Then Sammy called in using the Hotline. We begged him to come to the auditorium, but… He couldn’t. He was driving on Route 72, and the rainbow lights were over him. Lily, I really thought he was going to be taken. The UFO flew towards the station, and Baauregard’s transmorgrifier zapped it, totalling the UFO and the station both.”

Lily seemed overwhelmed. 

“So...Sammy moved in with Ben. He got some therapy, and they were on paid leave while Merv had the station rebuilt. Meanwhile, you were stuck alone in Big Pine. Pippa left. Mike was gone. But you weren’t done here, Lily. You, miraculously, convinced Sammy and Ben to help you with the third King Falls Chronicle.”

Lily scoffed. “That doesn’t sound like me.”

Emily hummed. 

“As you can imagine, that did not go… _super_ smoothly. Poor Benny, he had to be the peacemaker between you two.”

Lily almost smiled. “Jack used to do that, too.”

Emily grinned. “You did say Ben reminded you of him.”

Lily glanced at her, one eyebrow raised. Emily continued. “You actually… you kept leaving Sammy voicemails,” Emily laughed. “And he kept ignoring you. It got so ridiculous he had to change his answering message. But anyways, the three of you started working together. That’s when you began admitting, just a little, that some of the extraordinary happenings in King Falls were not fictitious.”

“Well, that _really_ doesn’t sound like me.”

“You also helped convince Sammy to go back to work at the radio station. And…” she hesitated. 

“And?”

“And, well. You were found walking barefoot on the side of the road, miles from your hotel. Your feet were torn up from walking on uneven asphalt and broken glass, and you were four sheets to the wind, Lil. A bottle of wine in each hand.”

“Well, that sounds like me,” she mumbled quietly. 

“Troy called the boys, asking Ben to come pick you up. He was about to do it, but Sammy came and got you, instead. After that, you started crashing on their couch. Slowly, you and Sammy started to… well, mend, I guess. On the fourth Sammiversary, you played a clip from your show with Jack. He was talking about love,” Emily said. 

Lily smiled softly. “I remember that day. I thought he was so corny, but every time I looked over, Sammy was beaming at him like he’d hung the moon.”

“You got a job at the station a few months later. Still staying with Ben and Sammy. The four of us were working on getting Jack back. There’s this cursed book, Death by Damnation-- well, the main point is there’s some prophecy stuff, but I thought it would be a good idea to search for this other book, similar to Death by Damnation. I found it, and it wasn’t… evil? I guess. Definitely not a cursed book. Neutral, but powerful. I read aloud to the three of you from the book, and we got dizzy, and fell asleep. Then I woke up here. The book said that you guys are from my timeline, my universe. You just can’t remember. The reason we’re here is to save Jack in this reality, so we know what to do when we get home.”

Lily hung her head, and let her arms flop out as she laid back on the bed. “Well, I’ll give you this, that’s quite a lot to make up at once. Do I believe it? No. Not really. But I’m interested, Potter. I’m interested.”

Emily grinned. “Will you stay? And help me?”

She blew out a breath. “Sure. I need to use up my PTO, anyways.” Lily smirked. 

Emily tried to still the excitement brewing up inside her, but she was pretty sure Lily could tell, anyways. They arranged to meet up at Lily’s hotel room on Emily’s next day off, and Emily went home that evening with a hopeful bloom inside her chest. 

She had a difficult time concentrating on her work at the library with how excited she was to see Lily again. The fact that Emily had (somehow) managed to pique her curiosity enough for Lily to be willing to see how far the rabbit hole went was a miracle in and of itself. 

Emily’s next day off eventually arrived, and she knocked on Lily’s hotel room door, bouncing on her heels with giddy anticipation. Lily opened it, a grumpy expression on her face. 

“Oh. Ms. Potter. Come in,” she said, frowning at the hallway as she stepped aside and let Emily in. 

“You can call me Emily, you know,” Emily said, then she caught the look on Lily’s face. “Are you looking for something?” 

Lily blinked. “No, just… feeling paranoid. What’s that?” Lily nodded towards the tupperware in Emily’s hands. 

“Oh, I made some cookies. It’s your favorite,” she grinned. 

“And you know my favorite cookies because ‘I told you’?” Lily said with a raised eyebrow, taking the tupperware and peeking inside. 

“No, actually, Sammy told me.”

Lily grumbled, but took one of the cookies and bit it, holding it in her mouth while she replaced the lid on the tupperware and passed it back. 

“Keep it, it’s fine.”

Lily shrugged. “Alright, Potter, what’s on the agenda today?”

Emily hummed noncommittally as she took in Lily’s hotel room. It had gotten messier as Lily got used to living out of her suitcase; there was trash from junk food spilling out of the trash can, and piles of clothes littered the floor. Emily made her way to the windows and threw open the curtains. “I was thinking of giving you an assignment,” she said absently, her gaze focused outside. 

“Is that so?”

“Mhmm. I think it’s a good idea for you to familiarize yourself with King Falls, and the void itself. Maybe look for missing people.”

Lily shrugged. “Alright. What are you going to be doing?”

Emily turned and smiled at Lily. “Building trust,” she said, waggling her eyebrows. 

Lily rolled her eyes, and they got to work. She set up her laptop on the bed, and Emily moved a stack of magazines off the table before setting up there. 

“There’s also lots of historical information about King Falls in the library, if you ever want to go there,” Emily said, her eyes on her own computer screen. 

“Not if I’m going to run into Stevens,” Lily snorted. 

“He’s probably sleeping at this hour. Their show starts at 2AM.”

“I didn’t ask.”

Emily rolled her eyes, and they continued working in relative silence for the next few hours. The quiet was only broken when Lily asked for a clarification, or Emily suggested another avenue for Lily to research. 

All in all, it was a productive day for Emily’s goal, and when she left, Lily even thanked her for the cookies. 

They kept meeting up on Emily’s days off, and Lily told her she’d made a habit of researching for hours, even when Emily wasn’t coming over. A few weeks after their first meeting, Emily texted Lily to ask if she would be willing to drive to King Falls for their rendezvous, instead of Emily going to Big Pine. 

“Why?” Lily asked, still slightly suspicious. 

Emily sighed. “My car is in the shop. I know it’s late notice, though, so if you don’t want to I’m okay with rescheduling, or doing this over the phone.”

The other line was quiet for a moment. “I can come over. Text me your address.” The line went dead, and Emily texted Lily her address. 

Lily texted back that she was on her way, and Emily began to wait. Impatiently. 

When Lily did finally arrive, Emily opened the door for her before she could even knock. Lily raised her eyebrows and peered at Emily over the tops of her sunglasses. “Eager, are we?” she said, and stepped inside. 

“Thanks for coming,” Emily said, closing the door behind her. 

“No problem, Emily. What’s the plan for today?” Lily asked, pocketing her sunglasses and glancing around Emily’s apartment. 

“I was actually thinking of showing you the book,” Emily replied.

Lily’s eyes widened. “ _The_ book? That one?” 

Emily nodded. “I mean, you know all about the Himinists, and practically as much about the Void and the Science Institute as I do,” she shrugged. “Just figured it was time.”

“Alright. Break it out, let’s take a look,” she replied, and sat on the couch. 

Emily brought out the book and handed it to Lily. Lily accepted it and leaned back, casting a sideways glance to Emily as she sat beside her. 

“You’re not worried I’m going to misuse it or fuck up a spell or… something?”

“Not really. I know you don’t believe everything I’m saying yet, but I’m assuming you’d rather be safe than sorry.”

Lily sucked her teeth and opened the book to its first page. “Okay, this is not in English.”

“I don’t know what you were expecting.”

Lily levelled her with a look. “English. I was expecting English. What language even is this?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know, actually.”

Lily groaned. “Then how did you _read it_?” she asked condescendingly. 

Emily sighed. “Just… Give it a try, Lil.”

“Fine! Fine, I’ll… give it a try.” Lily looked back to the book, her brows furrowed. Her frown deepened as the moments wore on, and Emily saw Lily’s eyes move across the page. She turned it, and began reading the next few pages. It was a few minutes before Lily pulled her gaze away. 

“What the fuck.” Her eyes were wide. 

Emily chuckled. “Not what you were expecting?”

Lily scoffed. “Oh fuck off, Potter. Don’t be smug about this. How come I understood that?”

Emily inhaled sharply. “Mmm…”

“If you’re about to say ‘magic’ I swear to FUCK--” Lily raised the book above her head like she was going to whack Emily with it. 

“Okay, okay!” Emily laughed, putting her hands up. “Don’t hit me with the enchanted book,” she said, and Lily put the book down on the coffee table. “What did you learn?”

“Uh… It was mostly detailing instructions on what to do once the purpose of the transportation spell or whatever is fulfilled.”

Emily frowned. “What are you talking about? It doesn’t say that,” she said, and grabbed the book, scanning through the first few pages. “Holy shit,” she said after a moment. “The text changed. It’s like a completely different book,” she laughed in wonderment. 

“What did it used to say?” Lily asked, peering down at the open book over Emily’s shoulders. 

“The first part was the spell itself, meant to be recited aloud by all participants,” Emily replied, still flipping through the pages. Emily gave Lily a rundown of the previous version of the book, surprised to find she remembered nearly all of it. 

“This shit just keeps getting weirder and weirder,” Lily said, shaking her head. Emily put the book down on the table and leaned back, looking at Lily. 

Lily met her gaze. “What?” she challenged, but Emily didn’t miss the humor in her voice. 

“I’ve been making a lot of progress with Sammy and Ben,” she said. “We’re friends. It’s nice.”

Lily sighed. “I’m glad your weird friendship mission is going well, Em, I really am. But just because the Lily you know is all sunflowers and rainbows with Stevens doesn’t mean I can do that. Not… now.”

Emily nodded. “I get it. I won’t talk about him if it makes you uncomfortable,” she said softly. 

Lily gave her a small smile. 

Sitting beside Lily, making progress on their research-- Emily couldn’t help but feel like it was all going to be okay. This was how things were supposed to be. 

Then a pillow hit her in the face. “Quit slacking, Potter. I thought we had work to do,” Lily said, one eyebrow raised, and Emily accepted the challenge without hesitation. 

When her living room was a mess of throw pillows and soft blankets, Lily finally accepted defeat, and sat down to finish the book. 

_Yeah,_ Emily thought. Things would work out. She was going to make sure of that.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Emily spends some time with friends. A red flannel comes full circle.

“Boo!” Emily shouted, and Sammy startled slightly, and turned around, his phone in hand.

“Hey,” he said, grinning as he pocketed his phone and gave her a quick hug. 

“Did I scare you?” Emily asked, and they began walking. They had plans to meet up by the library and walk downtown that afternoon, just the two of them. Ben would’ve come, too, but he was visiting Betty.

Sammy scoffed. “No,” he replied, not even trying to be convincing. 

Emily chuckled. “How’s the radio business?” 

“Absolutely cutthroat,” he answered with a deadpan expression, and Emily snorted. “How’s the library business?”

Emily smirked. “Oh you mean the incredibly high-stakes world of periodicals and microfiche? It’s as fast paced as ever, Sammy.” 

He laughed. “Are those little rapscallions in the children’s section giving you attitude?” 

Emily nodded, eyes wide. “Oh yeah. Day in and day out, all I hear is ‘Ms. Emily, where are the dinosaur books?’ and ‘Ms. Emily, do you have any books on space princesses?’ Like, yes, George, of course we have books on space princesses, but you’re going to have to wait until I finish stuffing this entire bagel into my mouth before you get anything out of me.”

Sammy started wheezing, and Emily had to give him some of her water before he calmed down. 

“Thanks,” he said, still coughing a little. He was doubled over slightly, leaning against the wall. 

“No problem.”

He looked at her, smiling. “Do you really have books on space princesses?” 

She scoffed. “Yes, Sammy, but as I’ve said before: you’ll just have to wait until I finish my bagel.” 

“Oh god, stop, you’re gonna make me cry,” he said through his giggles, clutching at his abdomen. “It hurts so much.” 

She grinned. “You’ll be fine, Big City. Want some coffee?” 

He straightened. “I wouldn’t mind some,” he shrugged.

“Alright, let’s go then,” she said, and held out her elbow.

“Are you escorting me?” He raised an eyebrow.

“Well, not if you’re going to look at me funny.”

“Alright, no funny looks. Scout’s Honor.” He placed his hand in the crook of her elbow.

She snorted. “You were not a scout,” she said decisively.

“Hey! You don’t know that,” he responded in mock outrage. 

“Oh, Sammy, I absolutely do.”

He rolled his eyes, and she led them towards the coffee shop. It wasn’t too busy, and they found a good spot after getting their drinks.

“Shame Ben couldn’t be here,” Sammy prompted, sipping his iced mocha innocently. 

Emily hummed, one eyebrow raised. 

“Something the matter, Emily?” Sammy asked, still projecting guiltlessness from every pore. 

She shook her head. “Not at all, Sammy. I find it interesting that you brought up Ben. You guys are pretty close, right?”

Sammy’s smile became slightly more forced, and Emily almost didn’t notice. “He’s a good cohost,” he replied. 

“He is. You guys are a good duo, I’m glad you’re friends, too.” Emily turned her attention to her drink, but was pleased to find that Sammy had relaxed a bit. She hadn’t meant to put him on edge, but constant hypervigilance was a pesky thing, she knew. 

“Me, too,” he said with a small smile. 

“Speaking of Ben--” she began, and he looked up at her. “You sure you don’t believe in any of the paranormal claims King Falls makes?”

He laughed. “I’m pretty partial to Occam’s Razor, Emily. Paranormal occurrences are not usually the simplest explanations for things.”

“You’re telling me you don’t think the simplest explanation for what goes bump in the night is a fast-food eating Jesus who glows green like uranium glass?” She looked at him expectantly, stifling a grin. 

He made a big show of sighing and nodding his head. “Well, when you put it that way…”

Emily laughed. “There’s really nothing you believe? Not even Kingsie?”

He quirked his head. “I mean, you know I have a lot of respect for Ron Begley--”

“Of course,” she said.

“--But I need to see something to believe it,” Sammy answered. 

“Alright, alright, fair enough.” Emily found herself wanting to talk to him like she would talk to _her_ Sammy, with all the familiarity and teasing that they had cultivated over the years. But she couldn’t. This Sammy, the one in front of her, did not know her. He didn’t know she loved Ben, he didn’t know the things she had suffered because of this town, same as him. He didn’t know how much King Falls had taken from her, and how much she had taken back. 

Just like he had. Just like he _would_.

Emily shivered, half from the temperature and half from her thought process. Sammy raised his brows. “You cold?”

“A little,” she confessed, and he stood, unwrapping the red flannel from his waist and passing it over. 

“Here,” he said, and sat back down. 

“Oh, Mr. Stevens, what will the townspeople say if they see me wearing the flannel of the town’s newest big-time radio man?” she spoke with an exaggerated accent as she shrugged on the flannel. 

He shook his head. “I really don’t think I’m your type, Emily,” he said with a grin. “Don’t you like shorter guys?”

She huffed in faux annoyance and bit her cheek to keep from smiling. “Hush, you,” She pulled the flannel around tighter. She inhaled, then frowned. “Hey, Sammy?”

“Hm?”

“Why does your flannel smell like Hot Pockets?”

Sammy grimaced slightly. “I...maybe don’t have the best eating habits?” 

“No judgement here,” she laughed. “You don’t cook?”

He shook his head. “I know the basics, of course, but I never cook real, full meals if it’s only me,” he said. 

Emily frowned, and thought back to when she first met Sammy. He had started cooking more after the station started airing those Blue Apron Bob ads, and Sammy said he’d tried them. “Maybe you could try those cooking subscription services,” she said. 

He hummed. “Oh, I never thought of that.”

“Or invite people over and cook for them. Like Ben! I’m sure he eats like a college kid,” Emily said pointedly. “Or me, even. I’d love to not have to cook for once,” she joked.

Sammy smiled at her. “If I cook a nice meal, I’ll for sure invite you over,” he promised. 

“Scout’s Honor?” 

He laughed. “Yeah, Scout’s Honor.”

They parted a few hours later, with vague plans to have some sort of potluck dinner party. He texted her a few hours later with a picture of Ben, wide-eyed and excited. “Ben requests that we have sloppy joes at the potluck,” Sammy wrote. 

Emily laughed. She texted back. “Tell Ben I like the cut of his jib.”

**Sammy: Ben said “What the fuck is a jib, Sammy? Oh my god, don’t tell her I said that”**

**Emily: Tell him to come to the library and I’ll give him a book about jibs.**

**Sammy: “What? Sammy, stop texting her! Can I process this in peace please!?”**

**Emily: No, Ben, you can’t :/**

**Emily: Make sure you do the emoticon face, too.**

**Sammy: He groaned and unplugged his phone from the charger.**

Emily furrowed her brow. 

**NEW GROUP MESSAGE: Ben, Sammy, Emily**

**Ben: I want to be INCLUDED**

**Sammy: Our previous conversation was entirely about you, how is that not inclusion???**

**Ben: It’s not the same**

**Emily named the group: Getting Pot-Lucky**

**Emily: How do you guys like the group name?**

**Sammy: Terrible. Disgusting. I’m ashamed to know you.**

**Ben: Well I LIKE it.**

**Emily: Thanks, Benny :)**

**Sammy: [Michael Jackson Eating Popcorn.gif]**

**Ben: I’m gonna kick you out of the group chat, Stevens.**

**Sammy: Fine, I’ll just go back to texting Emily all alone**

**Ben: Wait no :(((((((**

**Emily: Don’t worry Ben, I’ll shun him.**

**Sammy: Wow. I see how it is. I guess I’ll just… be going now……..**

**Ben: wait. no. stop. don’t go :I**

**Sammy has left Getting Pot-Lucky**

**DIRECT MESSAGE: Emily, Sammy**

**Sammy: Emily. Will you add me back in?**

**Emily: I’m rolling my eyes at you, you know.**

**Sammy: Is that a yes?**

Getting Pot-Lucky

Emily added Sammy to Getting Pot-Lucky

Sammy: Ben, you’re a traitor for not letting me back in when I asked you. Emily, you’re an angel. 

Emily: You two are ridiculous, I’ll have you know.

Ben: Oh, we know.

Sammy: We fully know. 

By the time their text conversation had petered out, Emily was fairly tired, and she pulled off the flannel Sammy had lent her and got ready for bed. She had to work tomorrow, but Lily was coming over afterwards to express a theory. With a relaxed sigh, Emily gave herself to sleep.

Work was unexpectedly annoying, unfortunately for Emily and her coworkers. Several Karen-types decided to make Emily’s life extremely difficult, but that wasn’t even the worst part. The worst part was that Emily couldn’t even talk to her coworkers about it, because the year was 2015, and Karen was still just a name.

Which really just led Emily to another really unfortunate detail about 2015: so much good music hadn’t been released yet. 

She was stuck listening to the classics. While this wasn’t bad at all, she still couldn’t avoid hearing Shawn Mendes’ “Stitches” every time she went shopping. 

When the library was closed, Emily waved to her coworkers as they walked to their respective cars. She drove home in silence, too tired to even think about picking music to listen to. 

She parked in her designated spot and exited, only to stop short. Lily was leaning against the hood of her red Toyota, looking extremely bored. 

“Lily? You’re here already?” Emily’s voice betrayed her surprise. 

“Well, it sure seems that way,” Lily replied, her tone flat.

“How long have you been here for?” Emily fidgeted with the keys in her hands. 

Lily made a show of looking at her watch. “Thirty to forty-five minutes.”

“Really? I could’ve left early and unlocked the door for you,” Emily said, frowning.

“It’s alright. I’d have texted if I really needed it.” Lily did not seem bothered.

Emily nodded, and the women went inside. Emily flipped on the lights as she dumped her purse and keys, and toed off her flats. 

Lily kicked her shoes off unceremoniously and took a seat in the living room. 

Emily joined her, sitting down cross-legged on the couch. “So,” she said, fiddling with the tassels of her throw pillow, “how’s things?”

Lily made an ‘eh’ sort of expression. “Things are— fine, I guess. I’d rather tell you about my theory, honestly.”

Emily motioned for her to continue. “By all means,” she said. 

“Alright. Well,” she sighed, worrying her lip. “Assuming that I am completely and 100% on-board with your freaky spell idea-- which is a big if-- have you considered the possibility that one of the differences between your original reality and this one is that in one of them, Jack won’t be able to be brought back?”

Emily frowned. “Lily...do you really think that?”

“It’s a theory,” Lily said, looking down. “I can’t-- I can’t afford to have hope right now, Em. I had… I had accepted that Jack was gone forever. It’s been _months_ , and I am... all too familiar with the statistics.” She played with her nails, exuding anxiousness.

“Lily, we’ll get him back,” Emily assured, reaching a hand out to grasp Lily’s arm. 

Lily sighed and looked up, her eyes glistening with unshed tears. “But how do you _know_? You can’t be sure, Emily! He wasn’t-- you hadn’t even heard from him in your universe.”

Emily opened her mouth. “I know, but--”

“But what, Emily? What else is there to say?” Lily was crying now, still looking at Emily with despair. 

“We’d heard from Debbie! We know that those lost to the Void are still _there_ they can still reach the light, they just-- they need help getting out. That’s _us_ , Lily. We’re help.” Emily felt Lily’s pain keenly. She’d face this kind of doubt before. All of them had, really, except for Ben. Usually they would all talk through it, work it out. But Emily didn’t have Ben and Sammy to help comfort Lily. She just had herself. 

“Emily, I don’t-- I don’t know if I can do this. I barely know if I even _believe_ this, but it’s all I have. If… If we reach him, but we can’t bring him back, it’ll kill me, Emily. It really will.”

She wasn’t lying. It hadn’t even been a year for Lily. She didn’t quite know how to live with the pain, yet. 

“Lily, listen.”

Lily turned to Emily, wiping her face with her hands. 

“We owe it to Jack to try. We know where he is. We know, loosely, how to get him back. We _have_ to _try_.”

Lily met Emily’s gaze, looking so young and unsure of herself that Emily wanted nothing more than to show her what exactly Lily Wright was capable of. 

Lily sighed, her eyes sliding shut. Slowly, she nodded, and Emily grabbed her hand, squeezing tight. 

“That’s the Lily Wright I know,” Emily said, smiling gently. Lily huffed a half-hearted laugh. 

“Well,” Lily said after a moment. “I guess I’m in it, now.”

“Welcome to Operation Get-Jack-Back,” Emily replied. 

Lily folded her arms. “If that’s the case, I should probably tell you I’m running out of both money and paid time off.”

Emily felt a brief spike of fear. If Lily decided to go back to DC for a while, that would put a pretty substantial wrench in their plans. “What are you going to do?”

“I was thinking of putting Wright On on indefinite hiatus,” Lily answered. 

“They’ll let you do that?”

“Yeah, the Execs mostly let me do what I want. Partly because I don’t listen anyways, but Wright On is too successful to cancel me. Also, I can’t keep staying in Big Pine…”

Emily raised an eyebrow. “Are you asking to stay here?”

Lily smirked. “Well, now that you bring it up--”

Emily laughed. “I have an air mattress and a storage room, does that suit?”

“If I say no, will you upgrade me to a real bed?”

“No, but you can upgrade yourself by buying one,” Emily said, standing and stretching. “Want something to drink? Coffee, tea?”

“Vodka?” 

Emily scoffed. “Absolutely not. I’ll get you a tea.”

“It’ll have to do, I suppose.” Lily followed Emily to the kitchen. “What’s that?” she asked, painting to the flannel hanging off the back of a barstool. 

“Oh, it’s Sammy’s, he leant it to me,” Emily replied, turning on the stove and setting the kettle on it. 

Lily took the flannel and peered at the tag. “Oh, that little thief,” she spat, and thrust it at Emily. “This is _my_ flannel! I thought I lost it years ago, but I guess Jack stole it, and Sammy must have stolen it from him. Fucking asshole,” she said, shaking her head. 

Emily looked at the flannel. “How do you know it’s definitely yours?”

Lily took it back and pointed to the tag. “When I owned this, I thought it would be punk to write my name on my clothes.” 

Emily narrowed her eyes, and sure enough, the tag said ‘L. Wright’ in black embroidery thread. “Oh,” she said dumbly. 

Lily nodded. “Uh-huh. I’m taking this back, by the way.”

Emily frowned. “Wait, what am I going to tell Sammy when he wants his shirt back?”

Lily shrugged. “Not my problem, Potter,” she said, throwing it over her shoulder. 

She rolled her eyes at Lily, half exasperated and half fond. Emily stirred the tea, and added another item to her mental list of recent victories.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A potluck is had.

“I’m home, Lily!” Emily called, rubbing her neck. She walked to the kitchen table, where Lily sat with her laptop and a coffee.

“You know,” she said, looking up at Emily. “Everytime you say that, I have this mental image of myself, dressed in a 50’s swing dress with my hair curled, and you wearing a _very_ sharp pantsuit.”

Emily chuckled. “Am I killing it in the business sector?”

“Yes, and I am a housewife who dreams of more,” Lily quipped. “Then we eat a roast and go to sleep in separate, twin beds.”

“The American Dream.”

Lily snorted and shut her laptop. “How was the library?”

Emily shrugged and walked to the fridge. She pulled out a cup of yogurt and opened the lid, licking the yogurt off the foil and tossing it in the garbage. “It was fine,” she answered at least, grabbing herself a spoon. “Not very eventful, thankfully. Another minor apparition sighting, nothing too crazy.”

Lily raised her eyebrows. “Right. A ‘minor apparition sighting’. Gotcha.”

“Hem and haw all you want, Wright. You haven’t seen what I’ve seen,” she told Lily as she took a seat at the table with her. 

“Thank goodness for that.” Lily snorted. Then she frowned. “Hey, I’m getting bored staying home all day.”

Emily raised an eyebrow. She licked some yogurt off her spoon. 

“Come on, put me in, Coach,” Lily whined, an overdramatic pout on her face. 

She snorted. “I’m not the one keeping you benched, Lil, you are. You can leave anytime you want, you just never want to run into Sammy.”

“Yeah, because fuck that guy, he stole my brother _and_ my flannel.”

Emily gave her a pointed glance, but Lily was unfazed. “You’ll have to face him sometime,” she reminded. 

“But not yet, though,” Lily said with a dramatic sigh, and downed the rest of her coffee. 

Emily exhaled, but dropped the subject. 

Lily approached Emily before she left for work, when she was still brushing her hair. “I need a favor, Emily.”

Emily raised an eyebrow, the brush stilling in her hand. “Uh oh.”

“Yeah, har-dee-har. Can you just do it, though?” Lily said, rolling her eyes. 

Emily scoffed. “I’m not agreeing to anything until you tell me what the favor is.”

Lily pinched the bridge of her nose. “Fine. I need you to find out if Sammy is working tonight, and specifically when, and then I need you to listen to the show when he’s on the air so I can go out.”

“Lily!”

Lily groaned. “Please! I have an errand to run.”

Emily frowned at her, and resumed brushing her hair. “What’s the errand?” she asked with thinly veiled suspicion. 

“It’s… confidential.”

One look at Lily’s averted eyes told her everything she needed to know. “... It’s a date, isn’t it.”

“Wha-- no!” Lily laughed completely unconvincingly. 

Emily turned to face her fully, gesticulating with her brush. “It is! With who? You have a girlfriend already.”

Lily was genuinely taken aback. “What, no I don-- oh. Your weird other me.” Lily folded her arms. “Well, if she really loves me, she’ll understand.”

Emily just shook her head. “Who’s your date with?”

“Katie Lynch. She’s a postal worker.”

“Oh. Interesting. Why can’t you go during the day?” Emily said, filing that away for her notebook as one of the differences this universe had.

“Uh, because we could run into Sammy!” Lily said, as if it was obvious. 

Emily narrowed her eyes. “But nothing’s open at 2am. Also, why didn’t you just go out when I’m hanging out with Sammy, so you wouldn’t run into him? Furthermore, why are you so scared of Sammy?

“Firstly, fuck you for ever insinuating I’m scared of Sammy ‘can’t do a push-up’ Stevens. Secondly! I didn’t think of that. That’s a way better idea.”

Emily shook her head in exasperated fondness. “It’s not too late to change?”

Lily scrubbed her face with her hands. “Yes, it is. By the way, I’m going to go ahead and assume Katie Lynch is my girlfriend in the future based on the fact that you didn’t say anything about not dating her. Which, honestly, I’m very pleased, because that woman has the most intensely attractive muscle definition I have ever seen.”

Emily pursed her lips. “I’m… happy for you?”

“So does that mean you’ll do it?”

“Fine,” Emily conceded, and Lily grinned. 

Sammy was working at the usual time that evening, of course, so Lily and Katie were free to have a midnight meal at Rose’s. Emily was fairly tired by the time Chet’s show finished and the boys’ started, but she managed to stay awake to listen. She had recently bought a portable radio, which she kept in her bedroom. 

It was hard not to smile at Sammy and Ben’s voices as they filled her room. She found herself not wanting to listen to their show very often, because it mostly served to make her miss them even more, intensifying the constant ache in her chest. This night was filled with a few wacky insomniac callers, as well as a kind word or two from Ron Begley and Mary. 

Emily sighed, melancholy blooming inside of her like gentians. On an impulse, she grabbed her phone and dialed the number. She wasn’t waiting for long, and she felt her heartbeat quicken when they called her line. 

“Line four! You are now live,” Ben said, a flourish in his voice.

“Hey, Benny,” Emily replied, and she couldn’t help but smile. 

“Emily! A pleasure, as always. How’s your night going?” Sammy asked. 

She shrugged, even though they couldn’t see her. “Not too bad, I’m not really doing anything, so I figured I’d give my boys a call.”

Ben made a noise that was almost a cough. “Your- your boys?”

“Sure,” Emily said easily. “Unless you’d rather I didn’t say that?” she said, teasing.

Ben stammered. “No- not at all! That’s just fine, I don’t mind at all-- Sammy?”

“Uh… I’m fine with it?” Sammy asked, laughter in his voice. 

“Okay, great, so nobody minds, we’re your boys now,” Ben said in a rush, followed by an almost imperceptible sigh. She’d been in the station with him enough times to know that he’d just regretted something he said, and leaned away from his microphone to sigh about it. 

“Good,” Emily said, grinning. “What about you boys, how’s your night?”

“Aside from another of Ben’s ridiculous tangents about raccoons--”

“They really are the worst, Sammy.”

“--It’s been good,” Sammy finished. 

Emily chatted with the boys for a few more minutes, though she left not too long after. It was longer than their calls usually lasted, which Emily figured was probably Ben silently preventing Sammy from politely suggesting they take another call. 

When she got off the phone, she saw that Lily had texted her saying that the date was over, but she was going back to Katie’s for the night. 

Emily texted back a sophomoric emoji and turned her lamp off, pleased to finally be allowed to sleep after a long day. 

Emily was on the couch sending emails when Lily came back the next morning. It was ten, and Emily was still wearing her night clothes, her hair twisted into an ugly-but-functional top knot. 

“Good morning,” Lily said, removing her sunglasses. She took her jacket off and walked into the middle of the living room. Then, in one smooth motion, she collapsed to the floor and rolled onto her back, gazing up at the ceiling with a sigh. 

Emily couldn’t stifle her grin. “How was the date?”

Lily chuckled. “Good,” she said simply. 

“And how was it _after_ the date?” 

Lily cast a sideways glance in Emily’s direction. “Even better,” she said smugly. 

Emily tossed a throw pillow at her. “Congrats on the sex,” she said with a laugh. 

Lily caught the pillow without looking and placed it under her head. “Thanks,” she said, and did not clarify whether it was for the pillow or not. “What have you been doing?”

“Nothing that interesting, unfortunately. Just work stuff.”

“Ew.”

“I mean, I like my job, Lily.”

“Ew times two.”

“You’re a child.”

“Ew times infinity.”

Emily threw another pillow. They shared a comfortable silence for a few moments, but Emily forced herself to fracture it. 

“Hey, I need to ask you something,” she said, closing her laptop and placing it on the coffee table. 

“Uh-oh,” Lily sang with comically wide eyes. 

Emily gave her a look. “No, seriously.”

Lily rolled her eyes. “Ugh, fine. Speak your truth, Potter.”

“I want to know when you think you’ll be ready to see Sammy again,” Emily told her, biting her lip. 

“Hmm, let’s see, what’s the closest answer to ‘never’ that you’ll accept?” Lily said, in her telltale ‘using-humor-as-a-defense-mechanism’ tone. 

“Lily, come on.”

Lily sat up. “You come on, Em! Besides, it’s not even just up to me. Do you know what’ll happen if you spring me on him? He will shut down, and probably quit his job and move away from King Falls, like the coward he is.”

Emily gave a disappointed sigh. “Lily, that’s not fair, and you know it.”

She scoffed. “That is entirely fair. No matter what universe you’re in, I’ve known him longer than you, Emily. If he sees me, he will run. He hates me as much as I hate him, okay? Trust me on this.”

Emily rubbed her temples. “Okay! Alright. I’ll- I’ll figure out a way to talk to him.”

“Good luck with that,” Lily said, entirely insincere. 

Emily didn’t bring up Sammy for the rest of the day, but the apartment still felt tense and heavy. Emily found herself waiting for the day to be over, and Lily didn’t stick around for too long, in spite of her fear of running into Sammy. 

The next day was better, thankfully. Ben surprised her at the library, and he brought her breakfast and a coffee. He’d taken to doing that after they started dating, and Emily had to stop herself from kissing him, like she usually did. 

That was getting more difficult. Seeing him, becoming more familiar with him, yet not being able to do all of the things she was used to doing with him-- it was challenging. Part of her thought it would get easier, the longer she stayed in 2015. But it wasn’t getting easier; and she only missed him more. 

She wanted to hold him tightly, to feel his comforting presence beside her. She wanted to talk to him about how stressed she was about all of this. It was so hard to do it all alone, even though she technically had Lily. Still, just because Lily was nearby didn’t mean she could help, or make Emily feel any better when she didn’t fully know what was wrong. Lily just… she didn’t know Emily like she used to. Like she would, someday, if Emily was successful. 

Since she couldn’t tell him all that, she just accepted the drink, and gave him her most grateful smile. 

He seemed to understand, even if it was only a little. He spent a few hours bugging her while she worked (although she assured him multiple times that she didn’t mind) and before he left, he gave her a quick hug, and asked if they were still on for the potluck that weekend. 

“Yes! Definitely!” Emily said, and hoped that he couldn’t tell she had forgotten all about it. 

“Awesome! I can’t wait,” he said, and she smiled at him. He waved goodbye, and then he was gone, and Emily felt silly for missing him so much when he was still right there. 

The weekend came quickly, to Emily’s great joy. Her relationship with Lily had returned to normal, thankfully, and she grabbed the pie she’d baked for dessert and told Lily she was off. 

“Bring me back leftovers!” Lily called, not looking up from her phone. 

“Even though the food was made by traitorous hands?” Emily joked. 

“Traitorous hands make the best food, Emily, I’m surprised you don’t know that.”

Emily barked a laugh. “I’ll see what I can do,” she said, and Lily grinned. 

The potluck was held at Ben’s, unsurprisingly. Emily’s house was not an option for obvious reasons, and from what _her_ Sammy had told her about his first apartment in King Falls, Ben’s place was the best option. 

She carefully carried the pie to the door, and rang the doorbell with her elbow. Ben opened it almost immediately. “Emily!” he cried with a grin, and stepped aside so she could enter. 

“Hey, Ben,” she smiled, and walked inside. It was definitely the apartment of a mid twenty-something, Emily thought. The walls were fairly sparse, and almost all of the books on the bookshelves were about the paranormal. 

“Is that Emily?” Sammy called from the kitchen, and Emily walked inside, putting her pie down before greeting Sammy.

“It sure is. What have we got going on over here?” Emily looked at the spread of food on Ben’s counters. 

“Sloppy joes, of course, some chips, also potato salad, and I made a bit of chili and cornbread,” Sammy explained. 

“Wow, I’m impressed. I thought you didn’t cook,” she said, grabbing a chip. 

“Typically no, but I’m cooking for more than just myself, now. Plus, anyone can make chili. The cornbread was a bit more difficult, so I can’t promise that’ll taste good,” he replied, and she laughed. 

“I’m excited to try it out. I brought an apple pie for dessert, is everyone good with that?” Emily asked. Sammy loved apple pie, she knew, but Ben ordinarily was not a fan. At least, until he tried her apple pie. 

“Yep! I love apple pie!” Ben lied. 

She saw Sammy give him a suspicious look out of the corner of her eye. “Great,” she said. “Shall we eat?”

Dinner was delicious, and the cornbread had only minimal browning on the bottom. Emily allowed herself to forget her problems in the face of an evening with two of her favorite people on the planet. Ben did end up loving her pie, which did not surprise Emily (although the same could not be said for Ben.)

Emily and Ben worked together to clean the kitchen, and Ben kept blushing and apologizing everytime their hands brushed. It made Emily feel like she’d felt the first time around, when she and Ben were still unsure of themselves and where the lines of their friendship lay.

After that, Ben insisted they play video games together, and Emily managed to crush both Ben and Sammy in Mario Kart. 

Sammy and Ben faced off against each other next, and Emily frowned, lost in thought. She kept thinking about why she hadn’t made any progress yet. Sure, she and Lily knew each other, and she was friends with Sammy and Ben, but none of them remembered her. So far, not even telling Lily about the life she had in the future had done anything to jog her memory. 

But maybe the problem was that she was focusing on them separately. She’d worked on facilitating Ben and Sammy’s friendship, and her relationships with them both, just as she’d spent time with Lily, but she hadn’t approached them all _together_.

And anyways, when she thought about it, typically, nothing really got done unless they were all four of them more or less on the same page. Why should it be different in an alternate universe?

“You good, Emily?” Sammy asked, his brows furrowed. 

She nodded. “Just a tickle in my throat,” she answered, which was not technically a lie.

She stayed for another hour or so, then she took the leftovers Sammy and Ben offered to her and bid them both fond farewells. She even went so far as to kiss Ben’s cheek. “Bye, Benny,” she said. “I had fun.”

Ben gave her a lovestruck nod, and she gave Sammy a quick hug before leaving. When she got home, Lily was watching TV, wrapped in a blanket on the couch. 

“Hey, Lily, how was your night?” She placed the leftovers in the kitchen and stood behind the couch. 

Lily shrugged, pausing the TV. “Good. Relaxing. How was the asshole and his short friend?”

Emily snorted. “Both good! And terrible at Mario Kart.”

“Yeah, among other things,” Lily scoffed. 

“But not at making food. Leftovers are in the kitchen. Don’t eat them all! I want to take some for lunch tomorrow,” Emily said, and Lily was up in a moment, sock-sliding on the tile until she got to the kitchen. 

Lily microwaved some chili and cornbread in record time, and loudly slurped a spoonful into her mouth. She moaned, and Emily grimaced. 

“Could you not be sexual in my kitchen please?”

Lily shook her head. “No, it’s too delicious. Ben made this?”

“Sammy.”

Lily didn’t miss a beat, just kept shoveling cornbread and chili down her gullet. “Ugh, I fucking hate that guy. Super good chili, though.”

Emily just laughed. She went to bed shortly after, after downing a glass of water and two Vitamin C pills. She knew it wouldn’t actually do anything if she was already sick, but it eased her mind, anyways. She was asleep almost before her head hit the pillow.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Emily is sick, so Ben and Sammy surprise her with soup. At her home. Where she lives. With Lily. Cue problems.

“Lily!” Emily called, her throat thick with mucus. She could already tell she’d be down for the count today. 

“What?” Lily yelled back from her own room. 

“Come here!” 

She heard Lily groan, and then heavy footfalls as Lily approached Emily’s bedroom and pushed the door open. “What?”

“I’m sick, I’m staying home.”

Lily crossed her arms. “Are you asking me to take care of you today?”

Emily sniffled. “I actually hadn’t thought of that, but now that you bring it up, I would appreciate that very much.”

She huffed. “Fine, but you owe me one when you’re feeling better,” she said, pointing her finger at Emily. 

Emily just nodded, and frowned against the first pangs of a headache. “Can you text Olivia from my phone and tell her I’m not coming in?” she asked, pointing to where her phone rested on the nightstand. 

Lily grabbed the phone and took a seat on the other side of the bed, against the headboard. “How’s this: Dear Olivia, I’m sick as fuck. I’m staying home. XOXO, Gossip Girl?”

Emily shut her eyes. “I’ve never seen Gossip Girl,” she said, turning over on her side. 

“Damn, you really are sick. Don’t worry, I won’t send that. Go back to sleep, Em. Text me if you need something,” Lily said, but Emily was already half asleep. 

Emily woke back up around ten. She no longer had a headache, although she did still feel tired. She grabbed her water bottle and her phone, wrapped herself in a blanket, and stumbled out of her room like King Falls’ worst cryptid. 

“She lives!” Lily cried, grinning. She was eating scrambled eggs and watching The Princess Bride on a low volume. “How do you feel?”

“Not good.” Emily said, and sat down beside her on the couch. 

“You look like a worm.”

“I am one.”

“Would you like some scrambled eggs, Miss Worm?”

Emily sniffled, and nodded pitifully. Lily laughed at her, and walked to the kitchen. When she returned she carried with her a bowl of scrambled eggs, which she presented to Emily, along with a fork. 

“It’s got onions?” Emily asked in a small voice. 

Lily nodded. 

“I love onions,” she said, looking down at the bowl. 

“Then you should eat them, Em,” Lily laughed. She pressed play on the video, and Emily began eating. When the movie was over and the eggs were eaten, Lily stood and stretched. 

“Okay, you look like you’re about to fall over, so I’m going to recommend that you go to sleep again after drinking some water,” Lily said. 

Emily nodded dazedly, and let Lily guide her into drinking and laying down. She mumbled her gratitude, and fell asleep again. When she woke up for the third time, she did feel a fair bit better, although not completely up to snuff. It was around two, then. 

That was also the time she was supposed to be meeting Sammy and Ben for a quick rendezvous concerning a new initiative at the library. 

She reached blindly for her phone, and when she did find it, she blinked against its brightness. She pulled up her text thread with Ben and Sammy and apologized, saying she was sick and couldn’t make it. 

They both sent their well-wishes, and she sighed and put her phone down on the table again. “Lily?” she called, and Lily poked her head out of her room. 

“Hey, you’re awake. How do you feel?”

“Not great, but not as bad as earlier,” she answered. “Definitely done sleeping, though.”

“Wanna watch something?” Lily shrugged. 

“...Okay.”

Lily sat on the floor by the couch, turning on the tv with the remote. “What do you want?”  
Emily thought for a moment. “The Good Place,” she decided at last. 

Lily frowned. “I haven’t heard of that.”

Emily groaned as realization hit her. “Oh, shit. It came out in 2016. Damn.” 

Lily grimaced. “That sucks. Any second choices?”

“Parks and Rec, I guess.”

Lily shrugged and put it on. 

They watched for about an hour before they got tired and put on a period drama, instead. 

They were only fourteen minutes in when the doorbell rang. Emily figured Lily ordered a package, and did not move.

“I’ll get it,” Lily offered, and stood from her spot on the floor. She walked to the door and pulled it open, and Emily felt like she was watching in slow motion as Lily’s jaw dropped, and Sammy’s face mirrored it almost exactly from the across the threshold. 

Sammy and Ben stood outside of Emily’s apartment, brandishing a tupperware and a box of crackers. Lily stood inside Emily’s apartment, her fury quickly rising, based on the way her body language changed. 

“Stevens,” Lily said darkly, with all the bite of a jaguar. 

Sammy’s face closed off, his posture changing minutely. “Wright,” he replied in kind. 

Ben was looking between the two in blatant confusion. 

And Emily… Emily was altogether too tired for this. 

“FUCK!” she shouted, gathering the attention of all three of her companions. They turned to look at her, shocked. She crossed her arms over her head and groaned. Then, with a sigh, she pushed herself into a sitting position. “Okay, the three of you, get in here, and nobody say a damn thing.”

Lily spared one last scathing glance at Sammy, then abandoned her spot by the door to sit on the recliner, leaving no seats for Ben and Sammy. Sammy followed her inside, his eyes glued to Lily’s. Poor Ben was left quite lost, and he closed the front door and walked inside with what appeared to be great reluctance. 

Emily pointed to Ben, and the container in his hand. “Is that soup?” she asked, and Ben nodded, his eyes wide. She made a grabby sort of motion, and Ben handed the container to her. She took the lid off and sipped greedily.

Sammy and Lily, meanwhile, had not stopped glaring at each other. “So… You’re shacking up with my friends now, is that it, Lily?”

“What part of ‘nobody say a damn thing’ do you not understand, Stevens?” Lily asked, her voice somehow sweet and venomous all at once. 

Ben had taken a seat on the floor, and was looking between the three of them, frowning. Emily couldn’t help but feel a bit bad for him. 

“Lily, that’s enough. Sammy, that’s not cool and you know it,” Emily said, replacing the lid on the soup. Sammy and Lily had the good sense to look remorseful. Emily continued. “I’m going to talk, and the rest of you are going to listen. Is that clear?” she said. 

Her friends nodded seriously. 

Good. 

Emily opened her mouth.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A conversation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this was one of my favorite chapters to write :)

“This conversation is probably going to be very uncomfortable for all of us. It won’t make much sense, at least at first. But I want you all to know that the three of you are my family, okay? Again, that doesn’t make much sense, but it will. Hopefully,” Emily said, nervousness creeping in.

Sammy and Lily glanced back at each other with scorn, but at least Ben was looking at her attentively. She stifled a sigh, and continued. 

“King Falls is… it’s a weird town. By now, all three of you should know that pretty well. Even you, Sammy,” she said, and Ben and Lily both looked to Sammy, whose expression turned guarded. “It’s the little things, isn’t it? I mean, what other town has as many claims to the supernatural as this one, Sammy?”

She didn’t wait for him to respond. “There’s... a darkness here. Mayor Grisham, the Sheriff, HFB3-- they’re all part of it. As is the Science Institute. But that’s not all. Ben, I know you’ve heard the stories about Perdition Wood. And the Doorstep.”

Ben turned sheet white. Lily had heard all this before, and wasn’t surprised, although Ben’s reaction did seem to catch her off guard. Sammy was still closed off. 

“What is the ‘doorstep’?” Sammy asked, unconvinced. 

“It’s supposed to be like a gateway to Hell,” Ben explained. “Bad things happen there, people dying or disappearing-- dark stuff.”

“It is a gateway, but not to Hell,” Emily said. “It basically leads to a separate...plane.”

“What the fuck does that mean?” Sammy said, frowning. 

“Okay, think of it like-- fuck, Stranger Things hasn’t come out yet. Okay, um… like an alternate dimension, overlaid with our own,” she said, worrying her lip. “We can’t see it, except for some places when the boundary is thin, and people can cross over.”

“What’s there? In that place, I mean?” Ben asked, leaning forward. 

“The Void,” she said. “It’s called the Void. I don’t know what’s there. I’ve never been there. But I know that sometimes, people… people who have gone missing, they end up there,” Emily said softly, looking at Sammy. 

His jaw clenched. 

“And...The reason I know all this is because I’m… sort of from the future?” 

Sammy and Ben stared at her blankly. 

Emily sighed. “Lily, could you help me out here?” she said, turning to look at Lily, who was sitting with her legs crossed in the recliner, projecting an air of nonchalance. 

“Nope, you did fine explaining it to me,” she said.

Emily stared. “Lily, you didn’t trust me for weeks.”

“Not my problem, Potter,” Lily replied, and Emly sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. 

“Okay, fine. I am from an alternate version of the future. The four of us are best friends, and Sammy, Ben, and Lily are all roommates.”

Sammy scoffed. 

“That’s what I said,” Lily added, pointing to Sammy. 

“We are all on a mission related to the Void, which I’ll be happy to talk more about, but first, Ben, would you mind waiting in my room? I need to speak with Lily and Sammy alone,” she said. Ben looked slightly alarmed, but nodded, and Emily pointed to the room that was hers. Ben went inside, and Emily turned back to Lily and Sammy. 

“Alright. Sammy, I know about Jack.” 

His guard was up instantly. Sammy looked at her with wide eyes, then turned to Lily. 

She nodded. “It’s alright, Stevens. She’s safe.” 

Emily smiled at Lily, then looked back to Sammy. “Lily didn’t tell me. I knew already, because what I said earlier was true. Where I’m-- from, I guess-- the four of us are working to get Jack back from the Void. I know it’s only been a few months for you two. And I know how much you must be hurting,” she said, and Sammy looked away. 

Emily repressed a sigh. “Lily, can you please go join Ben?” Emily asked, and Lily groaned under her breath. 

“Fine.” Lily stood and went to Emily’s room. 

“In my-- where I’m from, you tried to get Jack back, and couldn’t, because you were doing it alone. You didn’t tell Ben about him until you were… you were outed. On the air. Lily had come to town by then, doing an episode on King Falls for her podcast. The two of you had some on-air… _debates_ and Greg Frickard… said some stupid, terrible things.”

“I’m the friend that Greg hurt?” Sammy asked, his expression unclear. 

Emily bit her lip. “Well, you, but… also me. I was abducted by the rainbow lights, and Ben managed to get me back, but I lost my memory. Greg gaslit me and convinced me to enter into a relationship with him. He fed me nothing but lies against you and Ben.”

“Eugh,” Sammy said, recoiling. 

Emily nodded. “Sammy… You’re my best friend. Where I’m from, you know me best, apart from Ben. We watch trashy reality TV together because Ben can’t stand it, we-- we send each other our favorite songs. You… you were also the first person in King Falls who I told I was trans,” she said, and he looked up, surprised. 

“You’ve had a really rough go of it, Sammy. But you’ve built something incredible here. Your whole life, the whole time I’ve known you, you have spent it quietly suffering. You don’t have to do that anymore, okay? You can just be.”

Sammy didn’t meet her eyes. His jaw was clenched, and suddenly Emily couldn’t bear to be so far from him. She moved off the couch and sat beside him, their legs touching slightly. 

“I...I _miss_ him,” Sammy said, swallowing thickly. A few tears fell, and Sammy rushed to wipe them away. He cleared his throat, sniffling slightly. “Sorry,” he said, curling in on himself. Emily grabbed his hand and squeezed it tightly. 

“Nothing to be sorry for, Sammy,” she said quietly. 

He exhaled, and nodded. “I guess I believe you, by the way. I don’t… I don’t really see any other choice.”

She smiled gently. “Thanks, Sammy... Now, I’m afraid I’m going to have to tell you something you aren’t going to like. 

He looked at her warily. “Most of this I haven’t liked,” he said, and he sounded so much like the Sammy she remembered it almost stopped her in her tracks. 

Emily looked at him plainly. “You have to talk to Lily.”

Sammy tried to pull away, but Emily gripped onto his hand tighter, refusing to let him close himself off. 

“Sammy, stop. Just listen to me. You two are amazing together, you know? You’re unstoppable. There’s nothing the two of you can’t do when you’re together. No, really,” she said at his scoff. 

“Emily--”

“No, I’m not done yet. You _need_ each other. She’s-- Sammy, she’s your sister.”

Sammy looked at her, expression unreadable. 

“Even before Jack proposed to you, she was your sister. The three of you were a family. And you two have to work together to get him back. And we _will_ get him back, do you understand? We will.”

Sammy nodded, although she knew it was more due to the force of her words than because he believed them. But still. It was progress. 

“Now,” she said, patting his hand. “Can I call Lily out here?”

Sammy sighed, and looked up at the ceiling. He shook his head, then looked to Emily again. “Alright,” he said. “Call her out.”


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The conversation continues.

Emily stood and walked to her room. When she opened her bedroom door she found Lily sprawled out on her bed, with Ben occupying only the edge, sitting uncomfortably straight with his hands in his lap.

“Lily, will you come out here, please?” Emily asked, and Lily craned her neck to make eye contact with Emily. 

She huffed a sigh, then ungracefully rolled off the bed, hitting the floor with a heavy _thud_. Lily stood, straightened her shirt, and walked out of the room without sparing Emily a glance.

Emily turned to Ben. “Sorry about that,” she said. “I’ll come back in and explain soon, I promise. There’s just… some things to address first,” she told him, and he nodded. 

“O-okay,” he said, and she gave him a comforting smile before closing the door again. 

“Lily,” Sammy said evenly, watching as Lily sat cross-legged on the recliner again.

“Stevens,” Lily responded, and if she noticed the faint tear tracks on his face, she didn’t mention it. 

She did, however, turn to Emily. “How exactly is this going to work, Emily? Are you going to heal our fractured relationship with the power of Library Science and delightful baked goods?” She asked sarcastically. 

Emily didn’t take offense. “No,” she said plainly. “I was thinking of just telling you guys how you did it the first time and then letting you guys deal with it yourselves. You know, like grownups?” Emily’s tone never wavered from her standard politeness.

Lily did not miss the warning, though, as evidenced by her sideways glances at Emily.

“How did we do it ‘the first time’ then?” Sammy asked, his eyebrows raised. He looked at Emily with an expectant expression. 

Emily sighed. “Lily knows most if not all of this already, do I’ll focus on you, Sammy. You’d been in King Falls for about three years, and Lily for a little less than that. You… you were in a dark place, Sammy. You had decided to quit your job at the station and leave King Falls.

“Then… um, you were outed, which I mentioned. By Greg. The combination of that, and your fights with Lily, and your discouragement over not having found Jack yet… you were low. Ben and many of your friends in town tried to convince you not to leave, but come May 1st, you didn’t show up at the last show. The reason for that, we would later come to know, was because you had tried to… go into the Void.”

Sammy’s jaw clenched, his brow furrowed. He inhaled a bit shakily, and nodded for her to continue.

“It wouldn’t take you. There was a man— Walt. He saved your life. You were driving to meet up with Ben, at the auditorium where he was with some of the townspeople, but… well, then the rainbow lights came. They would’ve taken you, too, except that they were… sort of shot down? Not super relevant at this point, I can explain later. Anyways, you moved in with Ben because your apartment was gone. You got some therapy. The station was destroyed, so Ben didn’t work for months. Then finally the two of you were on air again, and Lily… required some assistance.”

Lily snorted. “On account of my being a drunk?”

Emily pursed her lips. “Essentially. She had endangered herself— walking barefoot by the road for miles, a wine bottle in each hand. Troy called you and Ben so Ben could pick her up, but you went instead. Then she moved in with you guys, and never left. 

“You slowly warmed up to each other, and in a few short months, Sammy, you were making Lily overnight oats, and Lily you were— well, you didn’t really do anything to reciprocate, but you generally were much nicer. And also, Lily felt bad about the whole… attempted disappearance via Void. Thing.” Emily day back and clasped her hands.

Sammy looked overwhelmed, Lily was just… waiting. Watching him, to see what he’d do. 

He heaved a sigh, then looked at Emily. “Are you suggesting we move in together in order to salvage the burning remains of our friendship?”

Emily scoffed and stood. “No, Sammy. I’m suggesting you figure it out yourself,” she said, her voice kind and gentle, even though her words were not. She started walking back to her room. 

“Wait, what about you and Ben?” Sammy asked suddenly, looking up at her.

Emily frowned. “What about us?”

“I _mean_ what’s that whole thing about?” Sammy clarified, waving his hand vaguely in her direction.

Emily thought for a moment. She _was_ tired of keeping her relationship with Ben a secret, even if Lily technically knew. Plus, this was Sammy. “We’re… together,” she said, and Sammy’s eyebrows raised. She continued. “I love him. It was… well, it was a difficult journey, but…” Emily smiled to herself. “It was worth it.” She looked up at her companions.

Sammy was grinning at her, and she forced herself to avert her gaze. “Unfortunately, this Ben, who, technically, is my Ben, still does not have _my_ Ben’s memories. And I don’t think telling him right now would be the right choice,” she said, forcing herself to be pragmatic. 

Sammy made a high-pitched noise that Emily took to mean he disagreed with her. “Counter point, it _is_ the right choice, and doing so could, I don’t know, ‘jog his memory’ or something.” He looked at her expectantly. 

Emily quirked her head. “Fair,” she admitted. “But I’m still going to keep that close to my chest for now, and I’d appreciate you doing so as well.”

Sammy nodded. “If that’s what you want, then I will,” he told her solemnly, and she reached out a hand, which he took easily. 

“That brings me to my next question. What do you want to tell Ben about Jack?”

Sammy let out a heavy breath. “Well,” he said, running a band through his hair. “Ben is— Ben is already the best straight friend I’ve ever had,” he told her. Emily nodded. “I want to tell him, just… not yet? Soon, but… not yet.” 

Emily has no trouble agreeing to that. “Sure,” she said kindly. Then she stood, letting out a big breath. “Well, I guess I’ll go tell him about your… uh, ‘friendship,’ then. You two… have a lot to talk about.” 

Sammy and Lily looked at each other, for once without any venom or anger. Emily spared them one last glance before she walked to her room and quietly closed the door behind her.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sammy and Ben are finally brought up to speed.

Ben was asleep on her bed. His curly hair covered his forehead in a messy but still-kinda-cute manner; and he was snoring lightly. Emily had missed that sound. She’d missed the _man_. For a brief moment, she considered letting him rest. 

But no. There was work to be done, and she needed his sharp mind by her side if they were going to get back home. She sat down beside him, and nudged his shoulder. 

“Ben, wake up,” she whispered.

His nose twitched.

She kept pushing him gently. “Benny, wake up. I need to tell you something,” she told him, a little louder this time. 

He shook his head, but slowly awoke. “Em? Where am I?” He squinted against the light. 

“You’re in my room. Here, sit up, we have to discuss some things.” Emily grabbed his hand and pulled him up until he was sitting. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes, then squinted at Emily. 

“Sorry, sorry, just uh… give me a minute?” He asked, and she nodded easily. Ben looked down and immediately noticed their still clasped hands. He stared at them blankly.

Emily forced herself to let his hand go. He clenched the hand she had held into a tight fist, then released. 

“Um, I’d offer you coffee, but I don’t think Sammy and Lily would appreciate me interrupting them,” Emily said, attempting a joke. It didn’t land, and Ben just frowned.

“About that… Who is Lily? To Sammy, I mean,” Ben asked, meeting her gaze. “I know you said we were all friends, but-- Lily and Sammy know each other, don’t they?”

Emily exhaled. “Lily, Sammy, and Jack, Lily’s brother— they used to be best friends. They had a radio show in Florida when they were fresh out of college. The three of them had a… well, a falling-out. Jack and Sammy moved to LA to become radio hosts. Lily moved to DC to do Wright On.” There was more that had happened between all of these events, Emily knew, but Ben didn’t need all the details now, especially not ones which revealed the nature of Sammy and Jack’s relationship. 

“Well, in January of this year, Jack disappeared. We know now that he was taken by the Void. Prior to this, he had become obsessed with King Falls and all its paranormal events. Jack was always a fan of the supernatural, but this… it was a lot. After he was taken, Sammy moved here to try to find Jack, following the only lead he had,” Emily explained.

“King Falls,” Ben filled one with a shocked expression. 

“Exactly. So that Void-related mission I told you about? It’s to get Jack back.”

Ben exhaled slowly, running a hand through his hair. “Wow. Alright.”

“I was trying to find something to help us get him back. In my original timeline, I mean. I found this book, and I read from it, and it sent me here. It sent you four here, too, but without your memories.” Emily watched Ben carefully, scanning his face as he processed her words. 

“Sammy and Lily-- I mean, do they know about the book?”

“Lily does, I told her. Sammy doesn’t, yet. I’ll tell him soon.” 

Ben nodded to himself. 

Emily looked at him-- at the curve of his jaw and his slightly furrowed brow, watched as he chewed on the inside of his cheek while he thought-- and she opened her mouth. “The question now, Ben,” she began, already knowing the answer even before she asked, “is whether or not you’ll help us.”

“Of course,” Ben said instantly. Emily smiled. “Anything for Sammy. Well… and you, too,” Ben added, meeting her eyes. 

Emily gripped the hem of her shirt tightly, forcing her hands to do anything that wasn’t pulling him to her and kissing him senseless. And probably getting him sick in the process, Emily thought, reminded of the scratchiness in her throat. 

“Thank you, Ben,” she told him softly, breaking their eye contact. 

He coughed awkwardly, and from the corner of her eye she saw him rub the back of his neck. “Um-- yeah, anytime.”

Emily was saved from having to respond by Lily and Sammy, who opened her bedroom door. 

“So… are we doing this, or what?” Lily asked, standing with her arms crossed. Sammy stood behind her, his gaze drawn immediately to Ben, who smiled in greeting. 

Emily glanced between Sammy and Lily. “Are you guys… good?”

“No,” Sammy said instantly. 

Lily rolled her eyes. “But we are willing to play nice. For… for Jack,” she finished quietly. 

Emily nodded. That was probably the best she could hope for. “Well… I guess let’s go talk about the blue book, then.”

Emily led them to the living room, and she grabbed the container of soup that sat abandoned on the coffee table She put it in the microwave, and then grabbed the blue book from her bag. 

“This is-- well, it’s sort of a cursed book, except it’s not ‘bad’ cursed? It’s neutral, but powerful. When I read out loud from it to you three, it transported us here, but I was the only one who kept my memories, because I… well, I did it wrong,” she finished sheepishly, then deposited the book in Ben’s hands who immediately pawned it off to Sammy.

Emily retrieved the soup from the microwave and returned to the living room. She took a seat on the couch. Sammy was examining the book, frowning as he flipped through its pages. “By the way, don’t read it out loud. I don’t even want to think about where we’d go this time,” she muttered to herself, sipping the soup. 

“Why did it bring you here, though? Or us, I guess,” Ben asked. 

“Oh, right. So, it’s supposed to help us practice. We only have one shot at getting Jack back, right? This book contains a spell, and the spell basically allows you to travel to a mostly-the-same universe as the one you left, and accomplish your task there, so you know how to do it in your original universe. Apparently, it also gives you ample time to do it,” Emily explained. 

“I’ve been listening to you putter on about this thing for weeks now, but I’m still not clear on what your actual _plan_ is, Em,” Lily told her.

“Well, step one was get you. That’s been a smashing success. Step two was get you two,” she pointed to Sammy and Ben, “on the same page. Could have gone better, but we got there eventually.”

“And step three?” Sammy asked. 

“Jog your memories.”

“ _How,_ exactly?” He raised his eyebrows. 

“I... don’t quite know yet. Hopefully it happens naturally, because I’ve been wracking my brain trying to think of ways to get you guys to remember me.”

“Up to and including whacking us in the head,” Lily added, and Emily rolled her eyes. 

“Nothing quite so drastic as that, Lily. But the sooner it happens the better, especially because I need Ben’s help getting Tim Jensen back.”

Ben gawked. “You know how to get Tim Jensen back?!”

“No, _you_ do.”

Ben made a face. “Uh, no, actually, I’m pretty sure I don’t.”

“You’ve done it before. You got me back when I was abducted.”

Ben’s eyes went comically wide. “When were you abducted?” he squeaked. 

She let out a breath. “May 1st, 2016.”

Ben groaned and put his head in his hands. “My fucking brain hurts,” he said, and Sammy patted his back. 

“I’ve given you guys a lot to think about. I should let you process,” Emily decided. “We can talk more some other time, when you’re all ready.”

Ben looked up, and glanced at Sammy and Lily. Then he met Emily’s eyes. “Alright. I’m ready.”

Emily laughed fondly. “Benny--”

“I’m good, too,” Lily chimed in.

“Same here, Em,” Sammy added. “Unless-- if you want us to leave because you need to rest, of course we’ll go, but… If not, I think we want to stay.”

“Oh, I love having you guys here,” Emily said honestly. “I don’t want you to go.”

“Well… That solves that problem, I guess,” Ben chuckled, and Emily couldn’t help but join in. 

“Just tell us what you need from us, fearless leader,” Lily said with a wink to Emily. 

Emily thought for a moment. There was a logical next step, but it was one that Emily had been pointedly avoiding. She sighed. “Well… Unfortunately for all of us… I think we need to get Death by Damnation.”


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A harebrained scheme is enacted.

Lily had been methodically passing on her research to the boys (as per Emily’s request) for the past week and a half. It saved Emily a lot of grief, and she had both recovered from her cold and refined her plan.

“Refined” here meaning that she’d gone from essentially making it up as she went, to… making it up about four days in advance. 

But according to her four-day schedule, they were right on track. 

Emily was meeting Mary for lunch that day to discuss Tim. She felt a bit bad about not seeing Mary as much recently, given all of the business with Lily and the boys. She knew that the more time she invested in helping Sammy and Ben and Lily recover their memories, the better the chance of rescuing Tim, but she couldn’t tamp down the sting of guilt that arose when she thought about the Jensens. 

She felt that guilt all the way to Rose’s, where she was meeting Mary. She parked and let out a sigh, then exited her vehicle. Mary was already inside, according to her text.. Emily locked her car, and joined Mary at her booth. 

“Hey, Mary,” Emily said, and Mary stood to hug Emily. 

“Hi, Emily,” Mary said a bit quietly, but other than that, she seemed fine. 

They sat, and Mary took a sip of her iced tea. 

“How are the kids?” Emily asked, resisting the urge to bounce her leg or fidget with a salt packet. 

“They’re-- they’re okay, I think,” Mary replied, absently stirring her drink with her straw. “Staying with the grandparents a lot, you know.”

Emily hummed and nodded. “And… how are you, Mary? I know it’s been a little while,” she said, her tone apologetic. 

Mary just waved it away. “You know me,” she smiled. “Or so I hear, anyways.”

Emily smiled. 

“No, but I’m… I’m okay. You’ve given me a great deal of comfort, Emily. Just… knowing that we got him back before. It gives me hope. I know it’s not as simple as it sounds, but, well. At the very least, it stops me from taking my bat and swinging on people.”

Emily chuckled, and Mary glanced up at her, smiling. “I… I’ve told Sammy and Ben about myself. The whole--” Emily made a vague motion around her person. “--thing.”

“How’d that go?” Mary asked, leaning forward slightly. 

“Um, pretty good, honestly. It didn’t happen how I planned it, but it could’ve gone worse,” she answered, shrugging. “Now it’s just a matter of getting their memories back. Somehow.”

Mary nodded, an understanding expression on her face. 

“And Mary, when they have their memories back, I want you to know that getting Tim back will be the first priority.”

Mary swallowed hard. She let out a shaky exhale, and placed her hand over Emily’s on the tabletop. “Thank you, Emily. That means the world to me.”

“Your kids are gonna see their dad again, Mary,” Emily said, without even a shred of doubt. She turned her hand over so she was holding Mary’s.

Mary gave her hand a brief squeeze before she let go. She wiped a tear from her eye and nodded. “Well,” she started, sitting up a bit straighter, “I think we should have some lunch, how about you?”

Emily smiled. “Sounds good to me,” she said, and they looked over the menu. 

The rest of lunch was a nice, occasionally emotional affair. Emily said her goodbye to Mary, gave her a long, tight hug, and waved away as Mary drove off. She had given Mary more information on what to expect if “Tim” returned all of a sudden. Mainly, that included pricking his finger to see if he bled and then telling Emily the results. Emily stressed the importance of not letting “Tim” know Mary knew he was a fake.

She knew all too well how dangerous Science Institute duplicates could be. 

Emily spent the evening writing down everything she remembered of her rescue-- how she felt, what she knew of the place she was kept, and what could help her-- to give to Mary. It wasn’t much, but hopefully it would help her feel more prepared for when the real Tim returned. 

Lily was out when she got home from work, but Emily heard her come in a few hours later, after Emily had sent Mary her report. 

“Lily? Where’d you go?” Emily asked, closing her laptop and resting her elbows on the table. 

Lily shrugged as she walked to the fridge. “I was with Sammy.”

Emily gaped. “Were you really?”

Lily was obscured by the open fridge door, but when she closed it, balancing a bottle of apple juice and a jar of pickles in her arms, she was glaring at Emily. “Yes. Please contain your shock.”

Emily did not contain her shock; neither at Lily’s choice of company that evening, nor at her choice of snacks. 

She poured the apple juice into a mug and grabbed a fork, then sat down at the table. Lily took a drink of the juice and then smacked her lips annoyingly, grinning at the perturbed look Emily made. Then Lily unscrewed the pickles, speared one, and took a huge bite out of it. 

“I am… physically revolted.”

“You mean you don’t want some of Lily’s Surprise?” Lily asked, feigning shock.

“Lily’s _what_?”

“That’s been my name for this snack since I was like, ten. I used to gross Jack out with it. Sometimes I’d mix the pickle juice and apple juice together and dare him to drink it.”

“Ew, Lily.”

“Yeah, that’s what he said, too. I guess spending time with Stevens made me nostalgic or something,” Lily shrugged, her voice carefully nonchalant. 

“Why _were_ you spending time with him?” 

Lily rolled her eyes. “We have a job to do, Em. We said we’d work together, and we will.”

Emily wasn’t convinced. “Okay, but be honest, how much time did you guys spend fighting with each other today?”

Lily pursed her lips. “I don’t see why that’s relevant.”

Emily snorted, and grabbed Lily’s mug. She took a drink, then nearly gagged. “When did you put pickle juice in this?!” she croaked.

Lily chuckled. “Before I poured the apple juice. It’s...an acquired taste,” she said, and took the mug back, downing it in one gulp. 

Emily shook her head, grimacing. “That’s horrible. I don’t understand it and it makes me afraid.”

Lily offered her the jar of pickles. “No apple juice in this,” she swore, and Emily sighed, but accepted. 

“Thanks.” Emily crunched down and was relieved that it tasted like a completely normal pickle. 

They chatted for a while more, although Lily didn’t say anything else about Sammy, to Emily’s slight disappointment. If they were spending more time together, especially of their own volition, maybe it could lead to some regained memories. Emily didn’t want to let herself hope, but she did, anyways. 

The next day, Emily and Ben used the library for some research. Emily wasn’t working, so nobody bothered her, and she and Ben were able to spend more time looking for Death By Damnation.

“The last time it happened,” Emily said, “Mr. X led us to it before he died. It was in Salem. Beauregard has a copy, and Jack had a copy, and another one burned in a library fire. But unfortunately I have no way of getting in contact with Mr. X. Besides, you were his favorite.” She looked at Ben with a smirk. 

“Wha- me? Why me?” He asked, looking around as if someone was around the corner of the bookshelf, eavesdropping. 

“He thought you were the One. Actually it’s me, and you’re the Heart,” Emily explained easily, scanning the titles of books. 

Ben smiled. “Really?”

“Mhmm. Lily’s the Strength, Sammy the Protector.”

Ben quirked his head. “That makes sense,” he acknowledged, and Emily hummed. 

“Aha,” she said and pulled out an old book with a protective jacket. 

“What’s that?” Ben asked, looking over her shoulder. 

“I’m hoping it can point us to where we can find Death by Damnation, since I don’t want to go all the way to Salem if we don’t have to. Besides, there’s no guarantee it would even be there, based on all the other little changes this universe has to our original one.” She flipped through the pages, frowning every so often. 

Ben scanned her face. “What? What is it?” 

“So the bad news is, this doesn’t mention Death by Damnation at all, from what I can see. The good news is that it’s given me an idea.”

Ben furrowed his brows. “Okay?”

“Call up Lily, we’re going on a field trip,” Emily grinned to herself. 

Ben sighed, but did as she asked. 

Lily met them on the front steps outside of the library, projecting confidence from every line of her body. 

“Shortstack, Emily,” she greeted, and smacked her gum. 

Ben frowned. 

“Come on, Lily. We’re going to Beauregard’s manor,” Emily said without stopping, still beelining for her car. Ben stumbled after her, and Lily damn near chased Emily down. 

Her facade dropped, and she was looking at Emily like she’d grown another head. “Hi, excuse me-- you want me to do _what_?”

“Guess what this Beauregard Manor has that the one back home does not?” Emily asked as she sat in the driver’s seat, waiting for Ben and Lily to climb in, too. 

“I don’t know, environmentally conscious heating?” 

Emily grinned at Lily sitting in the backseat. “Tours,” she said simply, and pressed the gas. 

Ben and Lily were not, strictly speaking 100% on board with Emily’s plan. That was fine. They were still over 60% on board, and Emily could work with that. 

“Alright, Ben, you stay in the car, because Beauregard’s going to clock us if you come in, too. He’s never met Lily before, and he knows me professionally, so it shouldn’t be too hard to come up with an excuse as to why I’m there. We’ll go in, split up, look for anything that seems like it could be helpful. Lily, if you’re in a position to steal Death by Damnation, I wouldn’t fault you for doing it.”

“Are you telling me to try to steal Death By Damnation?” Lily asked, appalled. 

Emily waved her hand dismissively. “Of course not. But if you _can_ maybe you should.”

“What will you be doing?” Ben asked, looking at Emily. 

“Same thing as Lily, pretty much.”

“I feel weird doing this without Sammy,” Ben admitted, and Emily sighed. 

“I get that, but Sammy would not be on board with this, and his loud disagreeing would erode my conviction, so we have to leave him out.”

Ben did not appear comforted. That was fair. 

Lily groaned. “Emily, this is harebrained as shit.”

Emily made a face. “Shh, it’s going to be fine. Ready?” She asked Lily.

Lily pinched the bridge of her nose, but replied that she was. 

There was not a very large line at the ticket booth, so Emily and Lily got in quickly. She asked a worker if Mr. Beauregard would be there, and was nearly elated when the employee replied that Beauregard was out of town until the next week. 

Lily squeezed her hand briefly, and then they went their separate ways. 

Diverging from the tour group was almost ridiculously easy, and Emily soon found herself perusing Beauregard’s various opulent and unnecessary rooms. She checked in all the usual hiding spots for illicit or secret objects, and found a few interesting things, but nothing relevant. 

That is, until she made her way to the third floor, where Beauregard’s office was. This area was off limits, but Emily took that as a comfort. The tour would not be going this way, and it was highly unlikely that Beauregard’s employees would be allowed in any of his personal rooms without Beauregard there as well. 

The study was fruitful, but not because it held any pertinent information or items. It was fruitful because it had a _secret passageway._

Emily made sure to take a video of it opening and closing to show Ben later. The passageway was basically a short tunnel, accessed by pressing a button on the underside of the desk. Not terribly imaginative, but she supposed it was classic, in any case. 

The tunnel led to a small but dramatically-lit chamber with a pedestal. On the pedestal lay Death By Damnation, practically begging to be pinched and pocketed away. But Emily resisted. If Beauregard had gone to all this trouble to display DBD in a place only he could view it, he would definitely have taken precautions to protect it. And he would notice it was missing right away, she realized. The last thing she needed was for him to become suspicious, review the security camera footage, and have his Sheriff friend throw her and Lily in jail for a thousand years. 

She couldn’t touch it. But she could take a picture, and maybe, if this Universe was kinder than the one she’d left, she could come back for it. 

Emily took several, just to be safe. She left the office exactly as she found it, and texted Lily that she was heading back to the car. 

Lily met her there, leaning against the door while Ben remained inside. They got in, and Emily sighed. 

“Okay, so!” she said, peeling out of the parking lot. “I found the book. It was hidden in a secret room.

Ben sucked in an excited breath. 

“I took a video for you, Ben,” she told him fondly, and he beamed. 

Lily made a grossed-out noise from the back seat. 

“I couldn’t take it with me, but I did take a picture of the cover, so you guys can at least know what we’re looking for. I guess the next step is head to Salem,” she sighed. 

Lily grabbed Emily’s bag, fishing her phone out. “What’s in Salem? And what’s your password?”

“That’s where another copy of Death by Damnation is. Supposedly, anyways. That’s where we got it from the first time. And it’s 236690,” Emily said, hoping Lily wouldn’t say anything about her passcode. 

Luckily she didn’t, but Emily still found herself casting nervous glances to Ben anyways. It wasn’t likely he would recognize his name as spelled by the numbers on a keypad, but stranger things had happened, hadn’t they?

“Oh, shit,” Lily said.

Emily glanced at her through the rearview. She was gaping down at Emily’s phone, her eyes wide. “What? What is it?” Emily asked, her pulse picking up as a series of worst-case-scenarios paraded through her mind. 

“I have this book.”

Emily almost crashed the car. She pulled over to the shoulder, and she and Ben both whipped around to look at Lily. “You WHAT?”

Lily turned the phone around so Ben could see. “I have this book,” she repeated, grinning. “Jack visited me, a month or so before he disappeared. He brought all his King Falls research, _including_ this book,” she explained. “Things were still rocky between us, so I didn’t call him when he accidentally left it at my place, especially because he didn’t say anything about it, either. I just put it on my bookshelf and told myself I’d mail it back to him eventually.”

“Well, where is it now?” Ben asked, studying the picture on Emily’s phone screen. 

“It’s at my apartment in DC.” Then, realization struck, and Lily’s smile dropped. “An apartment I haven’t paid rent on in months.”

Emily sighed. “Alright, we need to talk to Sammy about this. Lily, can you call Pippa or one of your other DC people, see about your apartment? Ben, you text Sammy, tell him to meet us at my place.”

Lily and Ben both nodded, and Emily pulled back onto the road. Lily made her call, and Ben wrote his text, and Emily coped as well as she could with the mix of excitement, trepidation, and nausea in her stomach.


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lily and Sammy have a successful trip.

Emily answered her phone halfway through the first ring. “Hello?” she said, and made no attempt to conceal her excitement. 

“Hey,” Lily said, her voice tinny through Emily’s phone speaker. “That was quick. You got nothing better to do than wait by the phone, Potter?” Lily’s grin could be heard plainly. 

“What can I say, that’s just what you bring out in me, Lil,” Emily said, deadpan. Lily laughed. “Did you make it to the airport?”

“Yeah, we just passed security. Heading to the terminal now, if Stevens ever _ties his damn shoes_ ” Lily said. 

“Fuck you, Lily!” Sammy called distantly, his voice barely audible over the line. Emily smiled. This trip would be good for them. 

They were headed to DC, where they’d meet up with Pippa and her wife, who graciously offered to store most of Lily’s… ‘things’ (read: _junk_ ). 

“Alright, he’s done now, _finally_ ,” Lily told her. She sighed. “We’re gonna make our way to the terminal now. I’ll text you when we’re boarding.”

Emily smiled to herself. “Sounds good. Oh, when you get to DC, will you bring me a sweatshirt?”

Lily snorted. “Sure, I’ll bring you a sweatshirt,” she laughed. “Alright, I gotta go. Bye, Em.”

“Bye.” Emily ended the call and tossed her phone into her lap. She turned to Ben, who was driving them to Rose’s. “They’re at the airport, past security,” she told him. 

“I’m surprised they haven’t killed each other yet,” he replied. 

“I would agree with you, but I’ve seen how they can be together whenever they’re not mad enough to chew glass,” she responded, and he chuckled. He pulled into the parking lot at Rose’s and exited while Emily grabbed her purse from the floor.

She looked up just in time for him to open the door for her. Emily grinned at him, quick and surprised, and he just ducked his head and bit his lip. “Thanks,” she said, and he shrugged. 

“No worries,” he stated, although his tone indicated that there were, in fact, a fair few worries. She got out, and they walked to the entrance. 

This time, Emily was the one to hold the door for Ben, to his apparent surprise. “Oh! Um, thank you,” he said, and she laughed. 

“Chivalry isn’t dead,” was all she said in reply. They sat and ordered, then Ben clapped his hands together and raised his eyebrows-- Ben code for ‘let’s get down to business.’

“So, as far as the book--”

“The blue one or Death By Damnation?”

“Death by Damnation,” he clarified.

She nodded. “Right, please continue.”

“As far as the book goes, what’s… the plan? Like, what do we do with it? I’m assuming it doesn’t just tell us how to get Jack back?”

Emily shook her head. “No, unfortunately. It… it has information on the Void. Most of it is sort of-- it’s almost like a code. The four of us have each spent countless hours poring over the text, searching for meaning and context and definitions of bizarre words that aren’t in English and aren’t in any other modern language, either.”

Ben grimaced. “That sounds… time consuming.”

Emily shrugged. “The work goes faster with four,” she said simply. 

He cocked his head. “True.” 

Their food arrived a few moments after, and they spent the next minute or so chowing down in silence. 

“Wait, here’s what I’m confused about, though,” Ben started, his mouth full. He took a sip of his root beer.

“Besides everything?”

He laughed. “Yeah, besides everything. Do we have to go into the Void to get Jack back? And wouldn’t it just take us, too?”

Emily shook her head. “Firstly, I’m by no means an expert,” she said. 

“Closest thing we have,” he mumbled, and she smiled. 

“My best guess is that we have to open the Void. At this point in time in this universe, it’s not open-- at least, not really. Except… well, Last time there was that whole issue with the sacrifice…” Emily frowned. 

Ben’s fork clattered to his plate. “Sacrifice? Like, a _human_ sacrifice?”

“Relax, we’re not going to kill anyone. Although, I can think of a certain froggy-bastard who has it coming…” she muttered darkly. 

Ben paled. “Emily, I know you hate Greg, but murder is a bit drastic.”

“You’d change your tune if you remembered what he’d done, but I see your point. That’s-- back burner,” she said, waving her hand in the air as if to dismiss the thought. 

Ben relaxed minimally. 

“Look, I don’t know how things are going to be the same here, or how they’ll be different. I _think_ we have to enter the Void, but it has to… not… take us? I don’t think it can just take anyone, especially not if the gateway is opened. Once it _is_ open, we’d need to get Jack quick, and get back out again and close it. If we didn’t close it we’d… Um, we’d probably end up causing some sort of global… apocalypse-adjacent event.”

Ben’s jaw dropped. “ _Emily_ ,” he pleaded. 

Her shoulders raised to her ears, and she put her hands out defensively. “We just won’t fail! It’ll be fine!”

He scrubbed his face with his hands, pulling at the skin of his eyes and mouth until his face was a cartoonish frown. “You’re killing me, Em,” he said, and she flicked his forehead.

“No bad vibes, Arnold! We can’t afford to be doom and gloom. Besides, that’s Sammy’s job.”

“Sammy isn’t here, I’ve taken up the mantle in his absence.”

Emily scoffed, but it was not without fondness. “I’m sure you’ll make him proud.”

“I fuckin’ _better_ ,” he muttered, frowning. 

They left a little while later. Emily drove this time-- they were heading back to Emily’s place so Ben could take another look at the blue book. It had continued to change, although not by much. Ben had taken to writing his own notes about it, to Emily’s delight. 

“--which, if you think about it, is entirely counter intuitive, and I just don’t understand why they would put it in the game,” Ben rambled, and Emily frowned, slightly guilty about not paying attention. 

“Sorry, I zoned out, can you repeat that?” she asked, sliding to a stop as the light turned red. 

“Which part?”

“Like… the entire beginning,” Emily grimaced, and Ben just shrugged. 

“I actually don’t remember what I was talking about. Once it’s out, it’s out, you know?” he chuckled. 

Emily laughed. “Fair enough.” She opened her mouth to say something else, but was interrupted by her phone alarm ringing. “Shit, hold on.” She turned it off, and pointed to her purse, on the floor by Ben’s feet. “Could you look in there for a medicine bottle?” she asked, her eyes on the road. There was a fair amount of traffic at this hour; she had enough time to take her pills before the light changed. 

“Uhh this one?” Ben asked, holding up a plastic orange bottle. She nodded. He passed it to her, and she measured out her dosage and took the pills, swallowing them down with water. She gave the bottle back to Ben, who put it back in her purse just in time for the light to turn green. 

Ben was looking at her curiously, though to his credit he was attempting to be inconspicuous. 

“HRT,” Emily explained, taking pity on him. She nodded towards her purse. 

He nodded sagely. “Right. And that means…?”

“Estrogen,” she laughed. 

“Oh,” he said. He didn’t ask her any other questions, though she suspected he still didn’t quite understand. She had no doubt he’d do his own research, though. 

They arrived at her apartment not long after, and settled at the kitchen table to study the blue book. Sammy and Lily called them when they arrived in DC, but it was fairly brief. Ben stayed for a few hours after that, but he had to go home so he could get enough sleep before work. 

They said goodbye, and Emily promised she’d stay up to listen, even though she had work the next day. He’d grinned brightly at that, and she closed the door as he drove away. 

She kept her promise, even if she did fall asleep partway through the show. She could tell Ben didn’t like doing the show without Sammy, even though he did a good job. 

She woke up late the next morning, although Emily couldn’t bring herself to regret staying up. There’d been a string of donations recently, and she and Olivia were working on adding them to the library’s supply. 

Sammy called her on her way to work. 

“Sammy, hey! How’s the search going?”

Sammy sighed. “It’s… going. Pippa put Lily’s stuff in a storage unit, which is good, except that it’s impossible to dig through it without digging through everything. We’ve been at it for a few hours, I just thought I’d update you.”

“Thanks. Sorry you haven’t found anything yet,” Emily said. “If you guys end up not finding it there, I’ll go to Salem and see if it’s there.”

He sighed. “Hopefully that won’t be necessary, but I appreciate that.”

“Other than that, how are you? Have you and Lily gotten along alright?”

Sammy snorted. “We’re as passive aggressive and petty as we usually are, but we haven’t torn each other’s heads off yet. Pippa really doesn’t seem to like me, though.”

Emily frowned. She’d never met Pippa, and Lily didn’t talk about her too much. “Do you know why?”

“I don’t think it’s personal. I think she’s mad at Lily for uprooting her whole life and moving to Washington. Which, I guess is fair. She also seems to think I’m enabling Lily in some… I don’t know, delusion about getting Jack back.”

Emily sucked in a breath, grimacing. “Yikes.”

“Yeah. Her wife is really nice though, and Pippa’s been courteous, still. How’s Ben? How was the show last night, did you listen?”

“I caught the first bit, but I fell asleep before too long. He did a good job, although I can’t deny that there was an element missing.”

“The Sammy element?”

“Yep. It’s my favorite one, too,” she said, and he laughed. “Ben’s alright, he misses you. I, uh… I sort of told him I was trans yesterday.”

She could almost hear Sammy’s eyebrows raising over the phone. “Oh? How did that go?”

“I ended up taking my estrogen in front of him and explained that it was estrogen, and he said ‘oh’ and that was it.”

“He didn’t get it?”

Emily smiled. “Yeah, he didn’t get it.”

“He’s going to look that up, you know.”

“Yeah, but he’s going to have to dig a bit. The first things he’ll see if he googles ‘why would someone take estrogen’ are results about menopausal cis women,” she said, and Sammy chuckled. Then he paused a moment. 

“Hey… How come you didn’t just not tell him, and wait until he remembered you?” he asked, genuine curiosity in his voice. 

She shrugged, even though he couldn’t see her. “I don’t know… it’s Ben, you know? He’s not gonna know everything at first, but he’s so damn _good_ that he’ll keep trying. And anyways, who knows how long it’ll take for his memory to return? When I told him the first time, it only made us closer. I guess I just didn’t feel like waiting.”

Sammy hummed and was quiet for a second. “You know,” he said. “I think I’m going to come out to Ben when I get back.”

Emily grinned as she parked. “That’s great, Sammy,” she said. “I’m happy for you.” 

“Thanks,” he said quietly, and Emily could picture the shy smile on his face. 

“Hey listen, I gotta go, I just got to work. But good luck looking, and please give my best to Lily. Love you,” she said, then winced. She hadn’t meant to say that last part. 

“Thanks, I will. And uh… Love you too,” he said quietly, before hanging up. 

Emily laughed to herself as she walked inside the library. She and Olivia spent the next four hours cataloguing their donations and setting aside anything that didn’t meet the condition requirements. There were a few great books with horrible tearing that she felt bad about rejecting, but Olivia wrote down their titles so they could order some later on. 

Emily took a break, meaning to take lunch. As she was walking out of the back room she saw Ben chatting with the librarian at the check-out desk. 

“--oh, there she is now,” he said, pointing to Emily. She raised her eyebrows as Ben followed the librarian’s finger, and his face lit up when he saw her. 

He thanked the librarian and awkwardly half-jogged to Emily, grinning. “Hey, Em,” he said quietly, and she smiled. 

“Hey, Ben, what brings you here?” she asked, and he shrugged. 

“Just thought I’d say hi, I suppose.”

She smiled at that. “I talked to Sammy this morning.”

“Oh yeah? What did he say?”

“He asked about you. And how the show went.”

“What did you say?”

“I said you were good at your job, even if it was missing its usual snark and sass so graciously provided by Sammy. Although I did fall asleep in the middle, so I can only speak for the first part.”

Ben snorted. “It wasn’t the same without Sammy, it’s probably good that you fell asleep. No progress on the book yet?”

She shook her head. “They’re still looking. Sammy and Lily haven’t murdered each other yet, luckily.”

“Small victories, I guess,” he said, and Emily chuckled slightly too loudly, then cringed as the eyes of several patrons glanced towards her. 

“Here, let’s go to my office,” she said, and led him past the stacks of books. Her office was a bit small for two people, but luckily, Ben was a bit small for one person, so it worked out. She sat in her office chair and moved a stack of books off of a chair in the corner of the room for him to sit on. 

“Do you mind if I eat?” she asked, and he shook his head. She took a salad out of her bag and began eating. 

“So I went down to Big Pine this morning,” he said, and she frowned. 

“What? You didn’t get some sleep after your show?” she asked, swallowing down her bite of lettuce. 

He shook his head. “Not today. I did get this for you, though,” he said, and pulled from his pocket a sticker, about two-and-a-half inches wide. Printed on it was the trans pride flag, along with the words ‘trans rights!’

Emily looked down at it, fondness blooming in her chest. She glanced up and saw him leaning forward, bouncing his leg. He looked at her anxiously, with his eyes wide, worrying his lip under his top teeth. She saw this for what it was: an unsubtle but genuine attempt at support.

“Thank you, Benny,” she said simply, and he let out a relieved breath. 

“I was so scared you wouldn’t like it,” he said, chuckling. Emily took the sticker and closed her laptop. She peeled the backing off the sticker and placed it carefully on the lid of her laptop. Then she crumpled up the backing and threw it at Ben with a mischievous grin. 

He caught it easily, absentmindedly smoothing it out. “Does Sammy know? I mean, I don’t want to say something on accident if he doesn’t know. Although, I’m really not sure how easily that would come up in conversation,” he said, furrowing his brows. 

“It doesn’t come up very often. Not in King Falls, anyway. There isn’t exactly the biggest LGBT community here.” Ben opened his mouth as if to disagree, but Emily continued before he could. “Yes, I know there’s Ron and Archie and S--” she broke off. “...Some others. But as far as a _community_?”

Ben frowned. “Yeah, I see your point.”

She shrugged. “And anyways, Sammy and Lily both know. Nobody else in town, though. I mean, my mom knows, but she’s not in town.”

“Right. Okay. I’ll keep that in mind,” he promised, and Emily smiled at his serious tone. Then he yawned, and Emily was reminded of the fact that he probably hadn’t slept since yesterday.

“Ben?”

“Uh huh?” 

“Go home. Get some sleep. You look like you’re about to pass out.”

He yawned again. “What? That’s ludicrous. I’m fine,” he told her, not at all convincing. 

“If I leave to go do my actual job and I come back to find you asleep on my office floor, I’m going to tell Sammy all your embarrassing childhood stories.”

Ben scoffed, his eyes half-closed. “What embarrassing childhood stories? You’re bluffing.”

“You’ve forgotten something crucial, Benny.” Emily chuckled. “I’ve known you five years longer than you’ve known me. I’ve met your mother on numerous occasions. And she brought out the photo albums.”

Ben’s eyes opened fully. “Traitor. I always knew Betty would be my undoing.”

“I’ll have to tell her you said that,” Emily laughed. 

“Oh my god, no. Emily. Emily Potter. Do not tell my mother I said that.”

Emily waggled her eyebrows, which only made Ben’s panicked, exaggerated expression worsen.

“Emily. Emily, come on.”

She was not swayed. “Go home, Benny.” Emily stood and opened her office door. 

“Fine, but promise you’re not going to tell her,” Ben said, pointing at her seriously. 

Emily sighed. “Alright. I promise.”

His index finger curled into his fist, and his pinky sprung out. “Pinky promise?”

Emily looked at him for a long moment. Slowly, dramatically, she shook her head. “I can’t do that, Ben,” she said quietly. 

Ben put his face in his hands and let out a shaky breath. “You’re bad news, Potter,” he said, shaking his head. “Leading me down a dark a path.” He turned, and walked out the open door. 

“Thanks for the sticker,” Emily said sweetly. 

Ben turned around and faced her so he was walking backwards. “You’re welcome,” he mouthed, a tired smile on his face. Emily grinned, leaning on the doorframe of her office. 

Olivia passed by, watching Ben exit. “Your friend Ben is kinda cute,” she hinted. 

Emily laughed. “Yeah. Yeah, he is. Maybe I’ll marry him in a few years.”

Olivia looked at her, eyebrows raised, a shocked smile frozen on her face. “Girl, _what_?”

Emily just nodded. “In five to seven years, I’ll propose to him. We’ll have been dating for up to three years by that point. He’ll probably say yes.”

Olivia just scoffed and shook her head. “Whatever you say, Em,” she replied, walking away. 

Emily stared after Ben, a pleased grin stuck on her face. 

It was 3:45 AM when Emily’s phone rang. She fumbled for it in the dark of her room, and miraculously managed to answer the call. 

“Hello?” she said, her voice thick with sleep. 

“Emily,” said Lily’s voice, breathless. 

A spike of adrenaline shot through her. “Lily? What is it? What’s wrong?” Emily’s mind was already pressing play on a montage of worst-case-scenarios. 

“Nothing’s wrong. We found it. We found the book. Just as Jack left it. We’re bringing some of his other notes on King Falls, too. Sammy’s booking flights for us for later today.”

Emily let out a heavy breath. “Oh my god.”

“Yeah.” Lily began to chuckle. “This is good, right? We’re… We’re making progress.”

“Yes, we are. Thanks for calling me. Does Ben know yet?”

“No. Sammy said he’s on the air right now. I think he sent Ben a text, though.”

“Oh. Okay,” Emily said. 

“Um-- shit, it’s late, there isn’t it? I’ll let you go ,” Lily said, her voice taking on an apologetic tone. 

“Oh, right. Thanks for calling, Lil.”

“No problem, Em. See you soon.” The line went dead, and Emily put her phone back on her nightstand. She laid back down with a heavy sigh. 

Progress. This was progress. They were getting somewhere. Soon, they’d be getting Jack. And then they’d be getting home. 

Emily awoke again at a more reasonable hour, though it was still because of her ringing phone. She answered. 

Sammy spoke on the other end. “Emily, holy shit. I remember.”

Emily bolted upright, her eyes wild.”What? You remember?”

“I-- _yes_ ,” he said, excited and a little breathless. “Not-- not everything. Mostly I just remember Ben and I doing things we’ve never done, like... going fishing, or something. None of the stuff you’ve told me. Yet.”

“Still, though. That’s excellent! What do you think prompted it?”

“I don’t know, I was on the plane to Seattle, thinking about what I’m going to say to Ben when I see him, and… I just got this flood of memories. And they settled in so quickly and easily, I didn’t even realize they hadn’t happened in this universe.”

Emily grinned. “Good. That’s good. I’ll try to think of ways for you guys to recall specific memories, maybe that’ll jumpstart the process,” she remarked. 

“I’m by the bathrooms at the airport right now. Waiting for Lily to come out. We’ll drive back with a rental and drop it off in Big Pine, then we’ll get a rideshare to King Falls or something.”

“No, I’ll come pick you up.”

“I thought you had work today.”

“Doesn’t matter, I’ll skip out early.”

Sammy laughed. “You sound very determined.”

“I am.”

“Alright, Lily’s out. I guess we’ll see you in a few hours, then.”

“See you soon,” Emily said.

She looked down at her phone, only now noticing the texts from Ben. She opened their conversation. 

**DIRECT MESSAGE: Emily, Ben  
Ben: EMILY!!!! HOLY SHIT!!!!**

**Ben: sorry, I know you’re sleeping**

**Ben: BUT I JUST SAW SAMMYS TEXT WHEN WE WENT ON BREAK AND HOLY SHIT THEY FOUND IT!!!!**

**Ben: OKAY ILL leave you alone now**

**Ben: HE JUST TTEX TED TO TLE ME HE REMEMBERS SOMETHING S HOYL SHTI**

**(8:20 AM)**

**Emily: I know!!!!!**

**Ben:!!!!!!!**

**Emily: I’m picking them up from Big Pine later. Also, why aren’t you sleeping?**

**Ben: Too excited. I’ll pass out momentarily.**

**Emily: I’ll hold you to that.**

Lily called when they were thirty minutes away from Big Pine, and Emily got in her car to meet them at the rental place. She kept smiling excitedly on the way, and then scoffing at how she kept grinning for no reason. 

When she pulled into the parking lot, Lily and Sammy were already there, standing outside of the building, their luggage on the ground beside them. Emily got out, rushed towards them, and pulled them both into a hug. She squeezed as tightly as she could, but Lily still managed to wriggle out. Sammy just accepted his fate. 

“I’m loading the car!” Lily called, already opening Emily’s trunk. Emily and Sammy pulled away, and Emily walked up behind Lily to hug her again. 

Lily groaned, but did not try to squirm away. The three of them loaded the car and buckled up. 

“Does it feel good to be back?” Emily asked, turning out of the parking lot. 

“I mean, technically going back to DC was going home for me. But… yeah. It does,” Lily admitted, staring out the passenger window. Emily grinned at Sammy in the rearview mirror. 

“Do you guys feel closer than before you left?”

Sammy and Lily both stayed silent, avoiding eye contact. Their reddened cheeks gave them away, though. 

“How’s Ben?” Sammy asked. 

“Excited. Sleeping by now, hopefully. He was awake when I got up. But he can’t wait to see you both.” Emily smiled. 

Sammy and Lily were both tired, so they didn’t chat very much. Emily drove them back to her apartment and helped them unload. Lily almost immediately went to her bedroom and shut the door behind her. Sammy, however, just collapsed on the couch with a contented groan. 

Emily leaned over him, her hair nearly tickling his face. “Want some lunch?” she asked. 

He opened one eye. “What’ve you got?” 

“Leftover fettuccine alfredo.”

Sammy opened the other eye. “Sounds good.”

Emily smiled. “I’ll warm it up.”

Sammy stood while she heated up the food, grabbing plates for them both. They acquired their lunch and sat at the table, eating quietly. 

“Tell me about your memories,” Emily said, breaking the silence. 

Sammy stopped, fork halfway to his mouth. He exhaled. “Mostly, they’re about Ben. I have one about roses in October. That was kind of weird. You’re in some of them, too.”

“What do you remember about me?”

He shrugged. “I think just general friendship information? I know your mom’s name.”

She grinned. “What is it?”

“Helen.”

“Actually, that’s her middle name. Her first name is Diana. She prefers Helen, so that’s what she introduces herself as.”

“First name, middle name-- it’s all the same thing, isn’t it?”

Emily scoffed. “You don’t even have a middle name.”

“Yes I do.”

She put her fork down and looked at him, her hands folded. “You’re lying. What is it?”

He smirked. “My middle name… is Anxiety. Sammy ‘Anxiety’ Stevens. That’s me.”

Emily rolled her eyes. “I knew you were lying.”

He laughed at her. 

“You know when I asked about you and Lily in the car?”

Sammy nodded. 

“You both turned red.”

“It’s out of anger. Because we hate each other.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Teller of untruth, your trousers have combusted.”

Sammy snorted. “Fine. Things are… marginally less tense. I know Pippa’s one of her closest friends, but I think she was getting on Lily’s nerves.”

“Because of the enabling thing?” Emily asked, eating again. Sammy nodded. 

“Lily sort of… half-confided in me. Felt a bit like old times, honestly,” he said quietly. 

Emily hummed. “And… have you thought about what you’re going to tell Ben?” she asked. 

Sammy opened his mouth to reply, but was interrupted by a knock on the door. He looked at her, just as surprised as she was. She walked to the door and opened it. 

“Emily! Hi! Is Sammy here?” Ben asked, and she just nodded, stepping aside. 

Sammy stood, and Ben walked in. Ben looked like he wanted to hug Sammy, but he hesitated. 

_Right. They aren’t joined at the hip, yet._

Sammy and Ben kind of just stared at each other awkwardly for a second. “You guys could hug, you know,” Emily said, and Ben nodded decisively. He looked at Sammy, his eyebrows raised in an unasked question. Sammy just shrugged, and held his arms slightly out from his body. 

Ben stepped forward and hugged, and Emily had to stifle her laughter. Sammy noticed, though, and looked at her with narrowed eyes. 

“Welcome back,” Ben said when they parted. 

“Thanks, Ben,” Sammy replied with a smile. They sat down at the table and Emily joined them. 

“What do you remember?” Ben asked. 

Sammy shrugged. “Mostly you and I hanging out. Work nights. Breakfast at Rose’s. I have a memory from next month, too, which is weird.” 

Ben whistled lowly. “Damn. I can’t wait until I remember stuff.”

“It’s… kind of wild,” Sammy admitted. “I guess all in all it was a productive trip.”

Ben frowned. “I notice Lily isn’t around… By ‘productive’ do you mean that you kicked her off the plane?”

Sammy nodded solemnly. “Yes.”

The ensuing silence was filled by an incredibly loud snore from the direction of Lily’s bedroom, and then all three of them could not stop laughing. 

When Sammy regained his composure, he looked unsure about something. He met Emily’s gaze, and she furrowed her brows. 

“Actually, Ben, I have something to tell you,” Sammy said, swallowing hard.

 _Oh, shit_. “Sammy, should I--” Emily said, pointing to her room. Sammy shook his head immediately, and his eyes begged her to stay. 

So she did, and underneath the table she pressed her foot against his, just for a moment, just so he would know she had his back. 

Sammy let out a heavy breath. Ben looked between Emily and Sammy, his expression growing more worried by the moment. 

“Jack… was my best friend. But he wasn’t… _just_ my best friend,” Sammy began, and Benny’s eyebrows knit together. 

“He… was my boyfriend,” Sammy said, his voice shaky and thick with emotion. “Is. Is my boyfriend. I… uh, I’m gay, Ben.”

Ben looked at Sammy, though Sammy wasn’t meeting his eyes. Ben knocked his knee against Sammy’s. “Okay,” he said. 

Sammy looked up frowning. “Wha-- that’s it? ‘Okay’?”

Ben nodded. “I mean… Lily’s a lesbian. Emily’s trans. You’re gay. I still love you, man. You’re still my best friend. We’re still going to get Jack back. Twice, actually. So...Yeah. That’s it.” He shrugged. 

Sammy furrowed his brows. “That was kind of anti-climactic,” he said, and Emily chuckled. 

“Those are the best kinds of coming-outs, though,” she said. “The anti-climactic ones.”

“I feel like I was all worried for nothing.”

Ben smiled. “You were, dude. But it’s okay. You’re a worrier. Now stand up, I’m going to hug you again.”

Sammy made a show of sighing, but he stood and accepted Ben into his arms easily.

“You know,” Ben began, once they were seated again. “We’ve got L, G, and T. Who do we know that’s B?” 

Sammy shrugged. “Chet?”

Emily scoffed. “Not at _all_.”

“I mean… My first kiss _was with a boy_.”

Emily and Sammy both whipped around to stare at Ben. “WHAT?” they said in unison. 

Then Sammy turned to Emily. “You didn’t know this?!”

Emilly shrugged helplessly. “Just because I’ve known you all for years doesn’t mean I know _everything about you_.” She turned to Ben. “Who was it?”

Ben shrugged. “My classmate, Dwayne Libbydale.”

Emily choked on her spit. “Your first kiss was _Dwayne Libbydale_?!”


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ben and Emily share a moment, and Lily recovers her memories.

Sammy’s memory continued to return, albeit slowly. He told her that focusing on the people involved in the memories he needed to recover sometimes helped, so she recommended that to Lily and Ben. Unfortunately, there was nothing from either of them so far. 

They’d made progress on Death by Damnation, however. Emily was slowly walking them through it-- explaining context and how exactly the four of them would pick apart the book for every piece of relevant information. 

It was difficult when three out of four of them had steady jobs. Emily had to stress to Lily the importance of _never_ working on the book alone-- a lesson she’d learned the hard way. In her freetime, Lily did freelancing, writing articles about whatever she was asked to for various publications. She hated it, but she did it anyway. The rest of her time was likely spent with Katie, though Emily never saw them together. 

But that was probably because what they did together was not appropriate in public. 

Sammy and Lily, meanwhile, managed to become incrementally closer. Emily was proud of the progress they’d made. It helped that Sammy had some vague memories of Lily from the future where she was in King Falls, even though at the time Sammy was infuriated by her. 

Sammy also remembered Emily’s disappearance, and some of Ben’s reaction to it. The day that Sammy remembered the first Sammiversary, he’d shown up at her apartment unannounced, and hugged her tightly as soon as she opened the door. “I’m sorry,” he’d said. Emily just squeezed him back, and told him that it was okay. She was back, and she was herself. 

“I’m made of sterner stuff than that, Stevens,” Emily had said softly, and he’d let out a small chuckle, his cheek still pressed against her hair. 

That was nearly two weeks ago, now. Lily and Sammy had been back for just over a month, and one of Sammy’s memories had come to pass, although with some differences. Ben was still freaked out about the roses at the station, though. 

Emily committed herself to working with each of her friends individually, walking through some of their shared memories together to see if anything was familiar. She’d had some success with Sammy, but none with Lily or Ben. Emily’s working hypothesis was that attempting to aid memory restoration would only work if the process had already begun. And it seemed like memory restoration must occur spontaneously, not by any external prompting. 

But memory was a finicky thing, and everything Emily _thought_ she knew could easily be entirely off-base. 

Emily sighed. It felt like they’d plateaued after Sammy and Lily brought back the book. Sure, they were working on it, but it was difficult and slow. And Emily had hoped to see further memory gains from Ben and Lily by this point. They were already well into November.

Seven months. It had been seven months. 

Emily ran her hands through her hair and pulled it up into a ponytail. She should get started on her day. She and Lily and the boys had plans to work on Death by Damnation later, since it was Emily’s day off. 

There was a knock at Emily’s bedroom door. Lily poked her head in a moment later, looking tired.

“I’m remembering things.”

Emily’s eyes widened and she sat up straighter. She opened her mouth to speak. 

“Before you say anything, I just came in to let you know that I’m going to be M.I.A. for the next little while.”

Emily’s jaw clicked shut. “Oh,” she said. 

“Yeah. I need to… process,” Lily mumbled. “Figured I’d hole up in my room.”

Emily nodded. “O- okay. I ‘ll let the guys know. I guess… Let me know if you need anything?” 

Lily nodded in response, and closed Emily’s door behind her as she left. Emily sighed, and texted Sammy and Ben the news. 

Emily thought back to where Lily was at this time of the original 2015. It was before Emily knew her, obviously after Jack, and after Sammy moved. The only real friends she’d had in DC was Pippa, whom she’d had a slight crush on, and Pippa’s wife. Not a very comprehensive support system. 

Lily was probably reliving some really bad times. Emily put her head in her hands. She resisted the urge to throw Lily’s bedroom door open and hold her tightly for the next two weeks. But that wasn’t what Lily needed, and it wasn’t what Lily asked for. 

Lily stayed in her room for the next four days. She texted Emily periodically to let her know she was okay, which Emily then passed on to Sammy and Ben. They’d worked on the book a little in that time, but nobody felt particularly up to it with Lily potentially suffering in the room ten feet away. 

On that fourth day, Emily was making iced tea when Lily emerged. She wordlessly padded on socked feet to the kitchen, where she waited for Emily to notice her. 

“Lily! Are you okay?” Emily asked once she’d turned, placing the pitcher of warm, brewed tea down on the counter. 

Lily nodded, and pulled Emily into a hug. Emily reciprocated easily, sighing as Lily tucked her face into the junction between Emily’s shoulders and her neck. “Are you sure you’re alright, Lil?” she whispered. 

Lily nodded again.

“Can I ask-- what do you remember?”

Lily sighed. “I remember Wright On.”

“The King Falls Chronicles?”

“No, the radio show.”

Emiy gasped. “Really? All that?”

“It was a lot, Em. Five years in four days, you know?” she joked, though it didn’t land. 

“What… I mean, can I do anything?” Emily asked, her arms still wrapped around Lily. 

“Call the boys over? Also, finish making that iced tea, maybe.”

Emily chuckled. “Alright,” she said. Lily went to sit on the couch, and Emily texted Ben and Sammy. She was pouring out two glasses of tea when Sammy texted that they were on their way. 

She poured two more glasses. 

Sammy and Ben came right on when they arrived, per Emily’s instruction. They froze when they saw Lily, still on the couch.

Lily held her arms out wide and looked expectantly at Sammy and Ben. She waved her arms a bit. 

Ben frowned. “I… I don’t--” 

“Ugh, just hug me, you assholes!” Lily shouted, and Ben and Sammy shared a confused look before complying. They sat on either side of Lily, sandwiching her in a big, sitting group hug. 

Sammy made eye contact with Emily over Lily’s shoulder and mouthed the word “help.”

Lily sighed contentedly, which only made Sammy raise his eyebrows even further. “You’re a good guy, Sammy,” Lily whispered, which made Sammy’s eyes go wide and his face pale. 

“This is weird,” he said after a moment. Lily pinched him. 

“You are, too, shortstack, but you already know that,” Lily said to Ben, who did not seem to know how to react. 

“Thanks?”

“Emily?” Lily said. 

“Yes Lil?”

“I appreciate how hard the past months must have been for you,” she told her. Emily smiled. 

Sammy and Ben turned around to look curiously at Emily, but she ignored them. “Thank you, Lily. You’ve made it much, much easier, you know.”

Lily let go of the boys and stood, then made her way to Emily to give her another tight but brief hug. “After today, I’m not gonna hug any of you for the next three years,” Lily announced, pulling away from Emily. 

“My stance on this might change, but at the moment I am mostly okay with that,” Sammy retorted, and Lily rolled her eyes. 

“I had valid reasons for hating you, you know,” she told him. 

“Okay?” 

“I also have valid reasons for not hating you _anymore_.”

Sammy was at a loss for words. 

“Okay, this is unrelated, but I am annoyed about it,” Ben remarked, and nobody objected to the subject change. “Everybody remembers the original timeline except me. I know Sammy only remembers a bit, and it seems like Lily remembers much, _much_ more, but I still can’t remember anything.”

Emily shook her head fondly, and passed him and Sammy their iced teas. “All in good time, Benny,” she said, her faith restored in their progress and their mission as a whole. 

“Come on, Stevens,” Lily said, pulling Sammy by the sleeve towards her room. “Let’s reminisce about the good ol’ days.”

“When was that?” Sammy snorted. 

“College. Muggy-ass Florida.” Lily didn’t have to add _Jack_ at the end of her list. It was implied. 

Sammy followed her into her room, and Lily closed the door behind her. Emily joined Ben on the couch, wiping the droplets of condensation on her glass of tea away with her hand. 

“You’ll remember soon, Benny,” Emily said, cutting through the comfortable quiet. 

Ben sighed. “Yeah. I’m sure I will, I just-- you told me that I could help the Jensens, once I remember.”

Emily frowned. “Ben, you’ve already helped the Jensens--”

“Right, but I could bring Tim back. You said I brought him back.” Ben’s eyes were steely now. 

“...Maybe I shouldn’t have said that.”

He laughed, though there was no humor in it. “Emily-- _yes_ you should have. I feel… Like, alright. We’re working on restoring our memories. Everyone but me is making progress. That’s-- fine, I guess. We’re also working on the book. That’s all of us. It’s slow going, but we’ll make it. We’ll get Jack back, and it’s not like we’re really on a time limit for that. But Tim-- _I’m_ the one who brings him back. Not the four of us, just me.”

“Ben, there’s time. Mary… she knows she’ll get him back. I’ve told her. We just have to be patient.”

“I’m tired of being patient, Emily,” he muttered darkly. 

“Well how do you think I feel, Ben? I came here _alone_. I’m not just outside of my time, I’m also outside of my space. The only sense of familiarity I got was from you, and Lily, and Sammy, and that _stupid_ book! You think you’re tired of being patient? It’s been months! Months of missing people who were right in front of me, of watching Sammy and Lily suffer silently, of seeing _you_ and knowing that you are not the Ben I left behind. Not without his memories. You’re so, _so_ close. But you’re not him.” Emily was breathing heavy when she finished, and somewhere during her rant she and Ben had gotten closer, their faces only a few inches apart. 

Ben’s eyes flicked down to her lips. 

_Yes,_ she wanted to tell him. _Do the thing you’re thinking of doing._

She leaned in slightly. Ben met her eyes, and found whatever it was he was looking for. In the next moment, his head was tilted just a little, just enough to slot their lips together--

“-- I still can’t believe we didn’t get fired,” Sammy laughed, emerging from Lily’s room. Ben and Emily sprang apart, making themselves as comfortable as they could on opposite sides of the couch. Sammy froze, having witnessed nearly the entirety of that extremely unfortunate event. 

“Jack was too damn good for that,” Lily responded from behind Sammy. She nudged him out of the doorway, then frowned at his stillness. She followed his gaze to Ben and Emily, who were both acting guilty. 

Logically, Emily knew there was nothing to be guilty about. Ben was still her boyfriend, even if he didn’t know it. And clearly, he still liked her.

Lily raised her eyebrows, then made shocked eye contact with Sammy, who by now had thawed enough to display some extremely judgemental (though loving) behavior. 

“Actually, Sammy, I think I have five-to-ten more minutes worth of Jack stories to talk about, would you accompany me back into my room?” Lily remarked loudly, lacking most-if-not-all subtlety, as per the usual. 

“I’d love to, Lily,” Sammy replied, his voice strangely formal. 

“Wait, Sammy,” Ben said, holding out his hand. “I need to get home if I’m going to get enough sleep before work tonight. I just need to know if I’m driving you, or if you’ll get home another way.”

Sammy glanced between Ben and Emily. “I’ll go with you,” he answered, after a moment. Ben nodded. 

He said a quick goodbye to Lily while Sammy and Emily hugged, then Ben was in front of Emily, looking like he had something to say. 

He scanned her face, and Emily’s breath hitched. At last, he spoke. “Bye, Emily,” he told her, his voice low and slightly hoarse. 

Emily swallowed. “Bye, Benny,” she said. Then, Ben and Sammy left. She walked back to the couch and flopped down with a groan.

Lily settled on the edge of the couch, down by Emily’s legs. “I had no idea how hard you had it, Emily.”

“He’s my fucking BOYFRIEND,” she mumbled, her face obscured by her hands. “I want to kiss him, Lily! It’s stupid!”

Lily gave Emily’s leg a comforting pat. 

Emily sat upright. “I haven’t kissed my boyfriend on the mouth in seven months, Lily. That’s terrible. That’s murder.”

“That’s not murder, Em.”

Emily flopped back down. “Feels like it,” she said, her arms crossed over her face.

Lily chuckled. “It’ll happen, Emily. You guys didn’t have a wild epic love story to be taken down by seven months of pining.”

She groaned. “Ugh, you’re right... Can I be sad for a little while more?” 

Lily snorted. “You say that as if I’m not the queen of ‘being sad for a little while more’.”

Emily smiled, then. “I missed you, Lily.”

Lily squeezed her leg. “Missed you, too.”


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ben is frustrated.

Sammy’s memories began returning faster and faster. By December, both he and Lily had regained all of their memories, up to and including Emily’s ill-advised book reading. Needless to say, the end of November was an emotional time for everyone. 

Even Ben had begun remembering. He still felt behind the curve, which Emily assumed was keying into some old childhood hurt he had internalized, which led to it affecting him badly now. Sammy, Lily, and Emily all had something that he did not-- their shared history. He was left out, in a way. Sammy would turn to Emily when he was having trouble coping with residual anger or pain from memories, instead of Ben. Plus, Lily and Sammy were best friends, seemingly overnight. 

Emily… Emily was in a weird place, because Ben knew. He did. But he couldn’t _remember_. He knew the bond the four of them had, because he was an integral part of it. Without Ben, there was no Sammy, and Lily, and Emily. 

He’d saved them so many times, just by being there. By being him. And yet, there was still something missing. 

Emily shivered, and knocked on Ben’s door. It opened quickly, and he beckoned her inside. He took her coat, and they sat at his dining room table. 

“So,” Emily asked, folding her hands in front of her on the table. “Are there any specific memories you want to try to get back today?” 

Ben shrugged. “Any and/or all of them,” he answered honestly. 

She chuckled. “Alright. What’s the strongest, most vivid memory you have?”

“Grisham and Sammy fighting at the Best Small Town in America celebration,” Ben replied easily. 

Emily smiled at the thought. “Can you dwell on that, see if it leads to anything? Maybe tap into the emotions of it?”

Ben nodded, and his eyes slid closed. He frowned slightly. Emily noticed for the first time how loud his house could be, all filled with ambient noise-- lights buzzing, clocks ticking, A/C whirring.

“Right now, all I’m feeling is hatred for Grisham,” Ben said. 

Emily furrowed her brow. “That… might lead to something, honestly?” 

Ben shrugged. After about a minute, he spoke. “Okay, hatred for Grisham has branched off to hatred of Gunderson. For… oh my god, killing my sugar glider.” 

Emily put her hand over Ben’s on the table. “Don’t get lost in-- in Peas,” she said. “Focus on Gunderson.”

Ben held her fingers tightly. “Asshole. Sexist. Homophobic. Racist.”

Emily could not disagree. He was all that and more. 

“He arrested Lily, for-- wait, Lily! Okay, I’m confused on the timeline here, Em,” Ben told her. 

“That’s fine. I can clarify anything later on. What about Lily?”

“Um… King Falls Chronicles… Doyle Bevins? Damn, Doyle’s Riley and Grisham’s Riley is the same person, I forgot about that. Now I’m back to Grisham.” Ben opened his eyes, letting go of Emily’s hand and leaning back in his chair. 

“You remembered Lily, at least. That’s a solid start.”

Ben nodded, though Emily suspected it was mostly to placate her. “It’s not enough,” he whispered. 

“It will be. Don’t push yourself. Or put too much pressure on this. I have a feeling the memories will stagnate if you hinge everything on them.”

Ben snorted. “Is that your professional diagnosis as a librarian?” he looked at her with a small grin. 

“No, that’s my professional diagnosis as your--” Emily stopped. She had been about to say ‘your girlfriend’. “--as your friend.”

He looked at her for a moment. There was a crease between his eyebrows that Emily wanted to smooth out with the pad of her thumb. She didn’t. 

“I want to take a break, Em,” he told her, quietly.

Emily sighed, and resisted the urge to remind him that they hadn’t been at this for longer than five minutes. “Alright. Let’s take a break.”

Ben left for the kitchen and poured them both some coffee. It had gotten dark quickly, though it wasn’t very late. He brought her mug to her, and she slipped her hands around its comforting warmth, sending him an equally warm smile. 

“Thanks.”

“It’s no trouble, Em. How’s-- um, how’s things going with Lily and Katie?” Ben took a drink of coffee. 

Emily shrugged, her lips pursed. “I think… I think Lily feels bad, because she _has_ a Katie, and they’re-- they’re good together. Not that _this_ Katie isn’t good for her, just--”

“It’s not the same?”

Emily nodded. “From what she’s told me, they were keeping things casual the whole time, which is probably for the best. 2015 Lily was not in the best of places, relationship-wise.”

Ben hummed, one eyebrow raised. “What with Jack, and everything?”

“Yeah, exactly. She misses Katie. Which I get, I mean, that’s her girlfriend, of course she’d miss her.”

“It must be hard to see a loved one right in front of you, and have them not really remember you the way you remember them,” Ben remarked, and there was no gravity in it. He didn’t know what Emily was facing. He still had no idea. 

“Yeah,” Emily replied, her throat too tight. “It is.”

They tried again, not too long afterwards. Ben remembered a few more insignificant details in a confusing order, but nothing that satisfied him. His frustration was tangible; evident in the restlessness of his hands and the clenching of his jaw. 

“I think I should get going,” Emily informed him, and the frown on his face was briefly replaced by a look of surprise. 

“Really? That wasn’t very long,” he said. 

“I know, I just think… Maybe you need to process this alone.”

He didn’t say anything, he just nodded. Emily stood, and Ben walked her to the door. “Thanks for trying, Emily.”

“Of course, Benny. Are you-- are you alright?”

He sighed, sharp and weighty. “I’m just-- It’s taking too long. It’s all taking too long. Everything feels like it hinges on me, and my memories and I can’t fucking _remember_.”

“Ben, you’re doing enough. Everything can wait. Yes, _even_ the Jensens. You’re no help to everyone if you keep vilifying yourself when you don’t meet your own standards of how long recovering your memory should take.”

He groaned. “Yeah, I-- I _get_ that, but Emily--” he chuckled mirthlessly. “Why should I have to keep waiting? And the way you keep talking, it sounds like you don’t even care that I can’t remember shit. What if it takes years? What if I don’t ever remember?”

Emily stared at him, her expression steely. “You have _no idea_ what I have gone through since May. I want you back just as badly-- if not _more_ than you do. Don’t act like I haven’t been by your side through all this in some form or another, because I _have_.” Emily was breathing hard by the time she finished, and Ben was looking at her with a strange mix of curiosity and remorse. 

She wanted to shrink away under the force of that gaze, already regretting her outburst. She’d said too much. He was going to know. He was going to see her. 

Ben raised his arm as if to touch her, or embrace her-- but it froze in the air, and a moment later his hand fell back down to his side. He looked away, scowling. 

“You’re right. I’m sorry, Emily. We’ll… We’ll just have to keep trying,” he said softly. 

Emily sighed. “I forgive you. I just… You’re not the only one dealing with this, Benny. You’re not alone.”

He just nodded, and walked her to her car. 

“I’ll see you soon,” he said, by way of goodbye. 

“See you soon,” she echoed. He stood there and watched as she drove away. The only thing Emily could think about as she made her way home was how tired she felt. 

Emily was roused in the middle of the night (yet again) by an incessant banging at her door. Her legs shook as she rushed to the door, her heart rate spiking. She turned the knob and threw the door open. 

There stood Ben, one hand over his mouth and tears streaming down his face. He sobbed on her doorstep, and looked at her with such deep sorrow that Emiy had to brace herself against the doorframe just so she wouldn’t fall. 

“I can’t believe I lost you. I can’t believe I let the lights just take you away,” he managed to get out, before another round of sobs wracked his body.

She pulled him inside and held him to her as tightly as she could. Ben didn’t hesitate to wrap his arms around her fully, and he buried his face in her shoulder and wept.


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More memories are regained, and there's some platonic cuddling.

They were sitting on the couch, Ben leaning into her side. She was playing with his hair absently. He’d stopped crying a while ago, and now they were just being together, comfortable in each others’ company. 

The morning was still a few hours off, and the house was quiet and still. Lily was resting peacefully in her room, undisturbed by Ben’s arrival. 

He shifted suddenly, turning to face her. He had a serious expression with that same crease between his eyebrows, and Emily forced herself to meet his gaze. 

“Emily, I need to know what we are to each other.”

She swallowed thickly. “We’re friends, Benny,” she told him, and saw from the way his eyes slid shut that it was the wrong thing to say. 

He opened them again, and said, more insistently, “No, I mean-- what we are where you’re from. In the other timeline, five years in the future.”

And she couldn’t deny him the truth, could she?

Emily looked at him softly. She put one hand to his face, wiping the tracks of long-dried tears away with her thumb. “Oh, Ben,” she said. “You’re the love of my life.”

Ben let out a shaky breath before burying his face in her shoulder and clutching at her desperately, pulling her into a hug. She pressed her cheek to his curly hair, letting herself be soothed by the perfect weight of him in her arms. 

When he pulled away, he stared at her for a long moment, before surging forward to kiss her, and Emily could have wept with how much she missed _him_.

She let herself feel the full force of it all, and how good it was to have him back, even if he didn’t remember everything yet. 

“I love you,” he told her when they parted. “And that’s not even my memories, that’s just-- I already loved you, before I started remembering. I fell for you twice, Em,” he laughed breathlessly, and she grinned, before pulling him in for another kiss. 

He stayed over, though they didn’t have sex. They just slept beside each other, and when the sunlight drifted through her window and woke her, they were just as entwined as they had been all night. 

Ben was awake, her head pressed against his shoulder. She pressed a kiss to the fabric of his shirt, and he looked at her with a small smile. He twined their fingers together and squeezed her hand. 

“Missed you,” she said simply. 

“I’m sorry you ever had to,” he told her, regret clear in his voice. 

“It was my own fault, really.” Emily sighed, turning on her back. 

They were quiet for a while, each lost in their own thoughts. 

Ben opened his mouth. “I remembered the third Sammiversary this morning.”

She turned to him, surprised. “Are you okay?”

He nodded easily. “Yeah, I’m alright. But I need to see Sammy today.”

“Okay. Want me to come?”

He chuckled, and turned on his side to face her. “I don’t want you to leave ever again, honestly, but that’s probably not realistic.”

She smiled. “Probably not, no. But I’ll still come today.” 

He leaned forward and kissed her quick. “Thanks,” he said when he’d settled back on the bed.

“What a way to start a relationship, huh?” Emily remarked, remembering the sheer elation and then gut-wrenching terror of May 1st, 2018. 

“The Sammiversary?”

She nodded. 

He exhaled. “Yeah. It really was.”

They got up soon after, and Emily found herself kissing Ben often, no longer forced to resist the urge anytime it arose. 

When they emerged from Emily’s bedroom, Lily was making coffee in the kitchen. She raised her eyebrows, clearly surprised. 

“Lily, I will pay you not to say anything,” Emily said, before Lily got the chance to open her mouth. 

Lily held her hands up. “Hey, I won’t say a damn word… yet.”

Emily groaned.

Lily sipped her coffee. “What are you two donig today? Besides, I assume, canoodling and whispering sweet nothings.”

“I remembered the third Sammiversary this morning, so we’re hanging out with Sammy today.”

Lily, for once, had nothing snarky to say. She just nodded understandingly, and patted Ben’s arm as she returned to her room.

Ben and Emily cooked breakfast together, then texted Sammy to ask if they could come over. The boys had two weeks off for the holiday, luckily, otherwise Sammy would be asleep at this hour. 

He replied in the affirmative, and Emily got dressed while Ben washed up the dishes. The drive to Sammy’s apartment was quiet and comforting, with Ben holding Emily’s hand as she drove. 

Ben didn’t bother knocking on Sammy’s door, he just walked in. Sammy looked up in surprise, but he relaxed immediately when he saw who it was. Ben walked straight to Sammy and hugged him, which Sammy returned easily. 

Emily closed the front door behind her and waited for her turn to hug Sammy. Eventually, after a good long while, Ben pulled away, and Emily gave Smamy a brief but tight hug. Sammy kissed her forehead. 

They didn’t do very much that day, really. Occasionally they watched TV or played cards, but mostly they talked, and enjoyed each others’ presence. 

At some point, Ben had the brilliant idea to take a nap, since Sammy’s bed was big enough to fit three if one was the size of a tall child. Sammy snorted, but agreed, and Ben curled up with Sammy and Emily on either side. 

Emily fell asleep safe and comfortable, with two of her favorite people within reach. She weaved in and out of consciousness for a while, but eventually figured she should just stay awake. Sammy was also awake, and they made eye contact over the top of Ben’s head. 

Sammy snickered, and Emily pressed a hand to her mouth so she wouldn’t accidentally laugh and wake up Ben.

She needn’t have worried though, because Ben stirred only moments later. He groaned and pulled Emily close. 

“Morning,” she said sarcastically, and he stuck his tongue out at her, his eyes still closed. He curled his arm around her. 

“I’m here too, you know,” Sammy reminded. 

“I know, that’s the point. Scooch in close, Sammy, I want to be the middle spoon.”

Sammy blinked. “The _what_.”

“The middle spoon. The person that’s simultaneously the big and little spoon.”

He frowned. “Why do I have to be the big spoon?”

“I’ll be the big spoon,” Emily offered. 

Sammy pursed his lips. “...Alright.”

Ben and Sammy both turned on their other sides and tucked in close. 

“I haven’t been a little spoon in years,” Sammy said. “Well, I guess it was 2014, so… technically not that long.”

“It still counts, you’re from another time,” Emily replied. 

“Here, how’s this,” Ben said, and dramatically swung his leg over Sammy’s hip.

“It’s kinda nice, I won’t lie,” Sammy admitted, and Emily chuckled.

“We have to switch at some point so I can be the little spoon, too.” 

“We won’t leave you out, Em,” Sammy said, and Emily could hear the fondness in his voice. 

They did switch not long after. Ben swung his leg over her, too, his arm curled over her stomach and his forehead pressed against her spine. 

Emily was so relaxed, she nearly fell asleep again. In fact, she was on the cusp of unconsciousness when Ben suddenly hissed “Oh, shit.”

“What? What’s wrong?” she asked, alarm. 

“I just remembered that Dwayne Libbydale is The Dark.”

Sammy snorted violently. 

“See, this is why I never _told you guys_ ,” Ben cried, removing his arm from Emily’s abdomen and turning over on his back. Emily flipped over so she was facing Ben and Sammy. 

“Ben,” Sammy began seriously. “You kissed _The Dark_.”

Ben put his face in his hands. “I know!”

“AND! AND! He was your first kiss. The Dark was your first kiss, Ben.”

“He wasn’t The Dark! He was just Dwayne!”

“Oh my god,” Sammy said suddenly. “No wonder he thought we were dating, Ben. This whole time he’s assumed you were secretly attracted to men.”

“Why do you say it like that? I could totally be attracted to men.”

Sammy raised an eyebrow. “But are you?”

“Fuck! I don’t know! I’ll figure it out later.”

Sammy laughed, and Emily couldn’t help but chuckle. 

“The Bammy theories are my favorite thing to come out of your guys’ show,” Emily told them, and Sammy snorted. 

“Our love is one for the ages, Ben,” Sammy teased.

“I know you’re being sassy right now, but I do unironically believe we’re platonic soulmates, so like, I’ll take it.”

“Aww,” Emily cooed. 

“You’re a sap,” Sammy replied, hopelessly fond. 

“Damn right,” Ben muttered, smirking at Sammy. 

Sammy flicked Ben’s forehead, which prompted a small bit intense flicking war that Emily mostly stayed out of. 

“Hey,” Emily said, when peace reigned again. Sammy and Ben looked at her. “I love you guys.”

Emily wished she could freeze this moment and live in it forever. She wanted to immortalize the smiles on Ben and Sammy’s faces, to carry them with her. But she couldn’t; so instead she smiled back, her heart more full than it had been in months.


	18. Part One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A plan is made.

The next few months passed so quickly they blurred together. The four of them managed to make good progress on the book by the time Ben’s memories returned fully. 

The day Ben at last remembered everything, he had walked up to Emily and kissed her so soundly she felt weak in the knees. It made her think of their first kiss on the third Sammiversary, before everything went to shit. 

He’d pulled away with the most self-satisfied grin she’d ever seen on his face, and Emily knew instantly. 

“Sorry it took so long,” he said easily, and she shook her head.

“‘S okay,” she replied. “I’m good at waiting.”

He smirked and kissed her again, accompanied by some hooting and hollering from Sammy and Lily.

After that, they were able to pick up where they’d left off with Death By Damnation. They also continued studying the blue book, and working on them in conjunction with each other yielded some _very_ interesting results. 

Such as the blue book levitating briefly. 

Unfortunately, with all the excitement surrounding their primary objective (AKA Operation Get-Jack-Back) they forgot about their secondary goal: helping Mary Jensen get her family back together. 

That is, until Mary Jensen dropped a black trash bag on Emily’s doorstep, her expression furious and heartbroken. The bag clattered over, and out rolled the disembodied metal head of Tim Jensen’s robot clone. 

Emily’s heart dropped. “Mary, I--”

“Save it,” Mary snapped. “I don’t want your sympathy, Emily. I just want my husband back. My _real_ husband.”

Emily looked at her-- all that fury and fire and heartbreak-- and she made an executive decision. “Mary, as of right now, getting you everything you need to bring Tim back is my first priority.”

Mary let out a breath that may have been relieved, and she nodded. “Okay,” she told her. “Thank you, Emily.”

Emily called a family meeting. With Lily and the boys all sprawled in her living room, Emily felt a wretched sense of deja vu. 

“I’d like to preface this by saying that I’ve… made a decision for the four of us. And I know that doing that is kind of what got us here in the first place, but please just let me explain,” she said. 

The three of them looked at her dubiously. 

“I told Mary that we’d make bringing Tim back our first priority. Or my first priority, I guess, but I assumed you guys would help me, since I don’t actually know how you did it the first time, Ben.”

The room let out a sigh of relief. 

“Emily, stop prefacing things. All it does is make us anxious,” Lily replied, running a hand through her hair. 

“I thought you’d made friends with Beauregard or something,” Sammy told her, and Emily recoiled. 

“Ew, no.”

“Of course we’ll get Tim back. I’ll start now. Sammy, will you help?” Ben turned to Sammy. 

Sammy nodded, though his brow was furrowed. “Yeah, sure but-- you remember I wasn’t involved with the plan like, at all, right?”

He shrugged. “You were more involved than Lily or Emily.”

Sammy sucked his teeth. “Yeah, that’s fair.”

Ben went off to find a blank notebook, and Sammy waited for him at the table. 

“What are you going to do?” Lily asked Emily. 

Emily sighed. “I think I’m going to try to write down for Tim what’s been going on since he was abducted, as well as what I know of the ones who did it to him. Just things I wish I’d known, you know?”

Lily nodded. 

“Em!” Ben called, and Emily turned. “What did you do with Robo-Tim?”

“I dumped the remains.”

“Damn, okay. They’ll know he’s destroyed based on the tracker. And that’s assuming the tracker was the only thing relaying information back to the Science Institute. That might be unlikely, though. We’ll have to work fast.”

“Guys.”

All eyes moved to Lily. “We’re going to have to burn down the Science Institute.”

Sammy sucked in a breath. “...What?”

“Think about it. They’re not going to stop. They’ll abduct more people. If not Emily, then some other poor soul driving at night. They’ll make their fucked up clones and terrorize this King Falls, just like they did to ours.”

Emily looked down. “She’s right. We need to get Tim, wreck the UFO, and destroy the institute.”

“But what happens after? The Science Institute has a lot of strings in their web, guys. If we cut off this head, another will move right in. It might take a while, but they won’t forget about King Falls. We’d be dooming them, and then fucking off.” Sammy crossed his arms. 

Ben frowned. “I keep-- I keep trying to think of ways to work around all these issues, but… Everyone here is too _young_. Their threshold for weirdness isn’t the same as ours. They wouldn’t believe us about the shadow people, or Beauregard, or the Science Institute.”

Emily pinched the bridge of her nose. “Then what can we do?”

“We could kill Leland Hill,” Lily suggested. 

“Lily! We can’t just murder somebody!” Ben shouted. 

“It’s just a suggestion!”

“Oh my god,” Sammy groaned, interlacing his fingers behind his head and bracketing his ears with his elbows. 

Lily bit her lip. “What about manslaughter?” 

“Premeditated manslaughter _is_ murder, Lily,” Sammy said.

Emily stood and grabbed the blue book, flipping it open and skimming, hoping to find _anything_ that would help them. “Hold on, guys. Listen,” she said. “This says that if we accomplish our goal, we’ll go back to our original timeline, but this one will continue with a version of us that has all of our original memories.”

“Well what the fuck does that mean?” Ben asked. 

“It means we’re not just fucking off and abandoning this King Falls. Part of us will stay,” Lily explained. “Somehow. Does that mean we can kill a guy?”

“Not if we’re still going to be here to face the charges,” Sammy quipped, and Lily snorted. 

“Look, guys, we’re pushing up the timeline on a _lot_ of things,” Ben started. “Whatever we do, we need to be all in, and we can’t treat this like we’ll get to leave after. We have to think about it like we’re staying. Because in a way, we are.”

The four of them made tense eye contact, and Emily herself onto the couch. “We need to tell Mary all of this.”

“Emily, we’ll just overwhelm her,” Sammy said gently. 

“She’s not made of glass, Sammy,” Emily snapped, then sighed. “Sorry, it’s just… She’s strong. We have all seen firsthand just how strong she is. She got dealt a shitty hand, but she’s still going to play it well.”

“You’re right. I just… I feel bad,” Sammy replied, sitting down beside her. She put her hand on his. 

“I know. Me too. But she needs to know what she’s dealing with.” Emily was not going to budge, and she was prepared to defend her point further, but Sammy deflated.

“Alright. Let’s tell her,” Ben added. “The sooner the better.” 

Lily agreed, too, and Emily called Mary over. The kids were at their grandparents house, luckily, so Mary didn’t have to worry about that. 

She came in with the same bone-deep weariness she always had, though it didn’t detract from the quiet fortitude that had emerged over the past year. 

“This is Lily Wright,” Emily introduced once Mary had sat down at the table with them. 

Mary said a quiet greeting, which Lily returned.

From there, Ben took the reins. “I wrote the plan that got Tim and Emily back last time,” he explained. “I’m writing it down for you as clearly as possible. But it’s not just… getting Tim back that’s the issue.”

“We also have to hit the organization that took him,” Sammy added. 

Mary nodded. “The Science Institute.”

Emily looked at her, surprised. “How did you know?”

She shrugged. “Wasn’t that hard to figure out, Em.”

Ben continued. “The problem we’re worried about is retaliation. If we maim this branch, more will come. They could easily overwhelm King Falls.”

“Let them. I’m not afraid.”

“Mary, these people are nothing to scoff about,” Sammy cautioned. 

“I understand that, Sammy. But this is _my_ town, and it is _my_ family they tore apart. I don’t intend to stand by idly while they make us all pawns in their corporate-cult activity. I’ve thought this through.” 

Emily almost smiled. 

“Now, if you’d be so kind, I’d appreciate it if y’all stopped underestimating me. Maybe I haven’t seen the future like y’all have, but that doesn’t mean jackshit. They say you don’t know what you’re made of until you’re broken, and this past year has broken me up well and good. I put me back together. I didn’t do it alone, but _I_ still did it.”

A chorus of “sorry, Mary” rose up, and Mary chuckled. 

“In that case,” Emily began. “Ben and Sammy will work on the immediate plan of Tim’s return. Lily and I will do our best to brief you on what to expect from the Science Institute.” 

Mary nodded, and they split off. 

The plan was perfected over the course of the next two weeks. With Mary’s informed help, as well as all four of them aiding where they could, the pieces fell into place easily.

Even Beauregard complied, although the mere mention of him still made all four of them recoil in distaste. In the end, Ben and Sammy were to shoot down the UFO, while Lily and Emily committed arson. 

May 1st, 2016. A year after Tim Jensen was taken. The day he would be brought back.


	19. Chapter 19

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The aftermath of a plan.

“Well, that did not go at ALL to plan,” Lily said brushing ashes out of her hair. 

“Let’s not talk about it,” Emily groaned, white knuckling her steering wheel. 

“At least Tim’s back now. And it’s not like we burned the _whole_ forest,” Lily added. 

“I said ‘let’s not talk about it.’”

“Emily, come on.”

“No.”

“It ended up okay!”

Emily turned to Lily with wild eyes. “‘It ended up okay’? Lily, we nearly _died_.”

“Yeah, who knew the Science Institute was built by fucking idiots?” she laughed. “I can’t believe neither of us lost our eyebrows.”

“Yeah, or, I don’t know, OUR LIVES.”

Lily sighed. “Look, we made it, alright? The building was extremely flammable, and that wasn’t our fault. Yes, the surrounding area did get a bit… singed. But not by much! And Tim is back, the boys are safe, Mary’s family is whole again. We did good, Emily.”

Emily sighed. “I guess. I just… Arson is not my strong suit.”

“No, assault is.”

“Lily!”

“Your killer right hook is one of the things I love about you, Em.”

“I’m done talking.” Emily said, and turned the radio on. 

“ _-We didn’t start the fire! No we didn’t light, it but we tried to fight i-_ ”

Emily turned the radio off. 

The car was deadly silent for four heartbeats. Then Lily cracked. 

“Oh my _god_ ” she said, and dissolved into giggles. 

“Lily,” Emily tried to chastise. “Lily, that’s not funny.”

“Yes it fucking is!”

“No--” Emily started but she broke out into laughter, too. The two cackled until their sides hurt, and Emily had to pull over so she wouldn’t accidentally crash the car. 

Lily was trying to even out her breathing, although Emily was still overcome, her laughs turning quickly to sobs. 

“Em, are you-- are you crying?”

Emily made a motion that was somewhere between shaking her head and nodding. 

“What are you crying about?” Lily asked, her voice gently amused. 

Emily shrugged, tears making tracks in the dust on her cheeks. “I don’t know! It’s been a weird day,” she said through sobs, and Lily nodded. 

“Yeah, it has.” Lily grabbed Emily’s hand and squeezed. “Want me to drive?”

Emily nodded, still sniffling. They switched spots, and Lily started up the car. 

“The boys should be at home by now.”

Emily swallowed. “I’m glad they’re okay.”

“Me too, Em.”

Sammy and Ben were home by the time the girls arrived. They’d brought food, too, to Emily’s eternal gratitude. She greeted them both with a tight hug (plus a kiss for Ben) and made herself a plate. 

“Guess what song came on the radio as we were leaving the scene of the crime,” Lily said, sounding entirely too happy. 

“What?” Sammy asked, his eyebrow raised. 

“We Didn’t Start the Fire.”

Ben covered his mouth. 

Sammy stared at her. “You’re _kidding_.”

Lily shook her head, delighted. 

“That is fucking hilarious.”

“It was, until Emily started crying,” Lily replied, and Ben whipped around to look at Emily. 

“You were crying?”

Emily finished chewing and opened her mouth. “Yes. It was an overwhelming time. I can’t talk about it until I have food in my body, though,” she said, and Ben nodded understandingly. 

Lily joined Emily at the table with her own plate piled high, and the two ate in silence while Ben and Sammy told them about their side of things. Lily and Emily did the same, once they finished. 

“So, with the Institute a smoldering mess and our dignity mostly intact, we fled the scene,” Lily finished, before yawning widely. 

“It’s going to take them a bit to rebuild, but they’ll be better prepared when they do,” Emily mused. 

“We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it,” Ben replied. “For now, I would love to pass out.”

Lily perked up. “Hey, we should do a Clearwater clump,” she said to Sammy. 

“Ugh, I could have gone another ten years without hearing you say that,” he replied. 

“What the hell is a Clearwater Clump? Ben asked, frowning. “It sounds disgusting.”

“It is!” Sammy interjected, and Lily shushed him. 

“It’s a cuddle pile, basically. Jack and I invented it when we were like five, then we dragged Sammy into it in college. You just get a bunch of friends (typically drunk college students, when we did it) and you fall asleep on the ground. Pillows optional but recommended.”

“They’re terrible, you get so sweaty and gross--”

“Oh hush, Sammy, you just hated them because of your dumb gay crush on Jack making it awkward for you to spend more than twelve seconds with him.”

“Well, clearly we moved past that,” Sammy said, holding up his ring finger. “Now I hate it because it’s sweaty and gross.”

“I vote yes, in spite of the likelihood of overheating,” Ben said.

“I’m in, too, but I need to shower first,” Emily seconded. 

Sammy grimaced. “Same.”

The four of them took turns for the shower, and then made a nest on the floor of the living room. They padded it as well as they could, and then settled in together in what amounted to a game of human tetris. 

Once they had settled, Lily spoke up. “Yeah, there’s no way I’m lasting the whole night like this.”

“We got old, Lily,” Sammy sighed, and Lily kicked him in the ribs. 

Ben glared at them. “Shh, I’m trying to sleep.”

Lily stuck her tongue out at him. “You shush.”

“ _You _shush.”__

__Emily sat up. “I love you both more than words could ever say, but if the two of you don’t stop talking I will kick you out of my house and you can go sleep in your cars.” She laid back down._ _

__“Sorry, Em,” said Lily._ _

__“Sorry, Em,” said Ben._ _

__Sammy didn’t say anything, because he was a good noodle. “You’re my favorite, Sammy,” she told him. He winked at her._ _

__Ben made a betrayed noise._ _

__At various points throughout the night, they each abandoned their nest in favor of actual furniture. Emily and Sammy retreated to her bed, and Lily and Ben ended up sharing the couch._ _

__With the morning sunlight came sore muscles, and anxiety-inducing news reports, but there was also a heartfelt thank you from Mary Jensen, and the knowledge that they had done something truly right._ _


	20. Chapter 20

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A different plan is enacted.

Tim Jensen was adjusting well after his missing year. He didn’t remember much, although he did confide in Emily about his nightmares. He wasn’t the same, of course. But Mary loved him just as fiercely, and he held his kids just as tightly, and she got the impression that they would be alright, even so. 

Emily started spending a lot of time with the Jesnens. Tim needed to feel like he wasn’t crazy for what he went through and the marks it left on him, and Emily could provide that stability. She knew what it was like to lose your identity and have to scratch and claw your way back to it. 

The Institute was set to be rebuilt in late 2017. They knew it was arson, but the investigators were dragging their feet. Apparently, Gunderson didn’t much care for the Science Institute when they weren’t signing his paychecks. 

Largely, life in King Falls returned to normal. The four of them continued working through the rest of the book, preparing in every way they could for Jack’s rescue. This included extensive historical research on the gateway, and how to close it. 

Tensions rose as they became more and more prepared, however. Sammy was anxious, Emily knew. Liy was too, although she hid it better. Emily could understand that; Sammy had nearly died the last time he went near the gateway, and Lily certainly had enough bad connections with it, even if only by proxy. 

Ben was doing his best to head their efforts, and trying to stay positive while he did. Once again, Ben Arnold was the one holding them all together, and she loved him for it. 

He told them they’d need a tether; something to pull them back from the Void. If the goal of the Shadowmaker was to isolate, to weaken bonds and let the dark creep in and envelop like ink in water-- they would need to be prepared. They would have to take some light with them to the land of the dark. 

“This should be a strong memory or connection you have-- a time you felt warm, and safe, and loved. Something powerful enough to bring you back to that moment,” Ben explained, leaning back in the booth. They were at Rose’s, their designated meeting area (that wasn’t Emily’s apartment, of course.)

“Watching Emily gut-punch Greg Frickard,” Sammy said fondly, and Emily grinned. 

“Okay, love the energy, but hopefully nothing that involves Frickard like, at all,” Ben replied, although he didn’t try to hide his smile. “You don’t have to share it with us, just solidify it in your mind until the emotions associated with it come easier to you.”

“I’m guessing we shouldn’t pick something that could easily turn bad, either,” Lily remarked.

Ben nodded. “Ideally, no. Like, Sammy shouldn’t pick Emily punching Greg because Greg sucks, and we hate him.”

“Fuck that guy,” Emily muttered, and Sammy nodded emphatically. 

Ben continued. “For example, I have a few I’ll try to keep on deck. One of them is when Sammy and I first said we love each other.”

Lily cooed sarcastically. “Aw, when’s the wedding?”

Ben didn’t miss a beat. “It’s today, actually, but you’re not invited, because you’re mean.”

Sammy snorted. Lily threw a napkin at him. 

“For all the shitty things we’ve gone through over the past few years, I’m kind of having a hard time deciding on a memory, but not because there aren’t enough good ones,” Emily said. “Because there are a lot of good ones, and I just don’t know which one I love most.”

Ben smiled brightly at her, and held her hand over the table. Sammy nudged her with his elbow, and she rolled her eyes at him fondly. 

Lily exhaled. “Alright, I know what I’m picking.”

“The first time you killed a man and ate his heart?” Sammy said sardonically. 

Lily blinked. “Yes. And it was delicious.”

Ben grimaced. “Gross, Lily.”

“If you _must_ know,” she said theatrically, “It’s the fourth Sammiversary.”

Emily pressed her lips together, trying to hide her smile. 

“That’s-- uh, that’s mine, too,” Sammy said softly.

“We’re going to get him back,” Ben whispered, and Lily swallowed thickly, but she nodded. Emily leaned her head on Sammy’s shoulder.

“Yeah,” Sammy said. “Yeah, we will.”

There was a full moon the night they entered the Void. It was cold, colder than February usually was in King Falls, though Emily didn’t know if that was for supernatural reasons or not. She pulled her jacket tighter around her, holding a gloved hand out for Lily by her side. 

Lily took her hand easily, and Ben stood by her other side. 

“I’ll go first,” Sammy said quietly. He grabbed Lily’s free hand and led them deeper into Perdition wood, his breath curling like smoke in the air. They walked in silence: only the sounds of their breathing and their footsteps disrupting the unnaturally quiet forest. 

Emily wasn’t sure how long they walked. She focused on the steady presence of Lily in front of her and Ben behind, their hands still held tight. Sammy walked with his head held high, and Emily watched him like a beacon, like a lighthouse shining the way over Lily’s hair. 

The darkness grew darker, the cold grew colder. Icy daggers stabbed into her, permeating her clothes and digging into her skin. They broke through her mind, too: injecting fear and doubt like poison. 

Emily squeezed Ben’s hand, and received a comforting squeeze in reply. 

They kept walking. 

Emily knew it once they had left the world. It felt so… so _wrong_ , this place. It made her stomach flip, her tongue heavy in her mouth. Sammy continued leading them forward. 

They weren’t in a forest or even a cave anymore, though Emily could not say what it had been replaced by. The ground was even, but the space felt open. She didn’t dare turn her head to look around, though. She just kept her gaze straight, her mind focused on their task and the tether that would bring her out of there. 

She almost expected her eyes to acclimate to the dark, though they never did. The shadows pressed in closer, and Emily let out a careful breath, turning her mind to her memories of light, of Ben and Lily and Sammy, of her mother and the Jensens, of every good deed that was ever done to her, every kind word ever said. 

The shadows around her remained, but the ones in her head dissipated, at least for the moment. 

Everytime she attempted to categorize or measure this place, to reduce it with logic and facts, it eluded her-- slipping from her grasp like sand. She wondered, again, how long it had been. This place was out of time-- it could have been seconds since they passed through the gateway, or it could have been a thousand years, and Emily would have no way of knowing. 

The shadows packed against her, making shapes and taking on form. They reached with arms and tugged at her clothes, trying to break her connection with Ben and Lily. She resisted, holding onto their hands with a death grip. The darkness twitched in front of her eyes, thickening until she couldn’t even see Lily a foot in front of her. 

The air was stale and biting, and it stung her lungs. She swallowed, and it felt like her throat was coated in tar. Emily couldn’t hear the footsteps or breaths of her companions, nor even her own. 

Still, they waded on, like some sick parody of a funeral procession. 

Distantly, she heard a voice. 

“--ammy? ‘S that you?”

Her heartbeat picked up, and hope burst forth in her chest so quick and bright it may as well have been a firework. That was Jack’s voice. She had heard it in recordings and old videos so many times it may as well have been as familiar to her as her own. 

Sammy’s voice came through, slightly closer. “It’s me, Jack. Grab my hand.”

“No,” Jack said brokenly, and Emily’s heart clenched. “No, this is another trick. It’s not you.” 

“Grab his hand, Jack!” Lily cried loudly. 

“Lily?” 

“We’re saving you, you asshole!” Lily sobbed, and Emily clutched at her hand as tightly as she could. 

Jack didn’t reply.

Emily waited for any noise or signal, any clue as to what had happened. Then:

“I’ve got him, Ben! Take us back!” Sammy called, and Emily exhaled, though she couldn’t take the time to be relieved. 

They switched directions so Ben was leading, and she let her surroundings dissolve from her senses, focused only on her tether. 

Blue early morning light, viewed from the windows at Rose’s.

Her mother, sneaking Emily sips of sweet coffee from her own mug as a child. 

The first time she met Ben. 

Lily laughing freely, the most unworried Emily had ever seen her. 

Mary’s love for her family. 

Tight hugs from Sammy. 

The life she’d built, the family she’d made. Her home. King Falls. 

She couldn’t pay attention to the movements of her body, or the pressure of the shadows, just Lily’s hand in hers and Ben in front of her. 

The next thing she knew, she was collapsed on the forest floor, under the light of the full moon. 

“Close it, Ben!” Lily called from somewhere nearby, and then a thunderous _crack_ , so loud she thought it cleaved her in two. 

Her vision went dark for a moment, and her hearing was muffled, a ringing in her ears. Emily pressed a hand to the side of her head, and it came away bloody. 

“-mily! Emily!” Lily said, standing a few feet away. Had she been there the whole time? “Call an ambulance, Emily!” she cried, and Emily tried to blink away the fogginess. 

She took her phone out of her pocket with shaking hands, struggling to unlock it with bloody fingers. It had broken at some point, and the sharp glass embedded itself into her fingertips. 

The emergency dispatcher’s voice was so far away, and Emily felt so tired. “Perdition wood,” she mumbled. “Ambulance.”

Her phone fell from her gasp, and Emily hit the ground, unconscious. 

“Emily?” 

She groaned. 

“Emily, wake up.”

There was a hand pressing on her arm, and Emily wanted to tell them to move, but her tongue was plastered to the roof of her mouth. She groaned again. 

The ringing in her ears was still present, though it had subsided slightly. She opened her eyes, then winced against the bright light. 

Ben was the one holding her arm, his face a mask of worry. He had dried black liquid on his face and clothes. “You’re in the hospital, Em.”

Emily coughed slightly. “Did I get hurt?” she asked, trying to sit up.

Ben nodded. “Your eardrums ruptured, and you had glass in your hands. You also have a mild concussion.”

She grimaced. “Are you okay?”

He smiled slightly, and rubbed her arm with his thumb. “Yeah, I’m okay. So are Lily and Sammy.”

Emily swallowed. “And… and Jack?”

“He had a seizure on the way to the hospital. They told us he has severe dehydration, and they’re doing tests now to see if there’s anything else that’s wrong.”

Emily nodded, absorbing the information. “Where’s Sammy and Lily?”

Ben sighed. “They’re in the waiting room. You want to see them?”

Emily hummed in the affirmative and Ben helped her stand from the cot she had been given. It wasn’t an actual hospital bed, so Emily assumed she hadn’t been admitted. Ben drew back the privacy curtain and escorted Emily down the hallway, to the waiting room. 

Sammy saw her first. He stood, his eyes wide, and Emily reached out for him. He strode towards her and hugged her, pressing his cheek to her messy, sludge-covered hair. 

“Hi, Sammy,” she said quietly, and he sniffled. 

“How are you feeling?” 

She shrugged. “Weak, but alright. How are _you_ feeling?”

He gave her a wry smile. “I’ve been worse.”

Lily approached her next, and wrapped her arms around her tightly. Emily leaned into the embrace, tucking herself against Lily even though Lily was the shorter of the two. “Good to have you back, Em,” she said. 

Emily nodded against her, and Lily sat them down on the chairs beside Sammy and Ben. What a sight they must have made, she thought. Each of them weary to the core, covered in dark residue and some dried blood. 

A doctor came by some time later, glancing at her clipboard, before it turned to them. She blinked, her eyes wide, then shook her head slightly. “Are you the family of Jack Wright?”

They nodded blearily, and Sammy and Lily stood. 

“Alright. And what is your relation to the patient?” she asked. 

“Sibling,” Lily answered, at the same time Sammy said “F-fiance.”

The doctor accepted this easily, and started leading them down the hallway. Ben and Emily stood to follow. 

A nurse stopped them. “I’m sorry, you guys can’t--” the nurse trailed off, taking in their appearances. “Actually, go right ahead,” she said with a sigh, shaking her head. 

They muttered quiet thank you’s and rushed to catch up with Sammy and Lily. The doctor showed them to Jack’s room, then left.

“What did she say?” Ben asked, standing on tiptoes to see Jack around Sammy’s shoulder. Lily took one of the seats beside the bed, and Sammy moved to take the other. 

“She said they’re going to monitor him closely.” Lily said, her voice scratchy. “He’s not in good shape, but they’re… they’re optimistic.”

Emily let out a sigh of relief. There weren’t any more seats in the room, and Emily was too tired to bring one in, so she just slid down to the floor, leaning her head against the wall. 

Ben joined her, wrapping an arm around her comfortingly. The four of them sat in silence, with only the ambient sounds of the hospital to fill the space. 

Lily fell asleep first, after constructing a makeshift pillow with her flannel. Ben was next, then Sammy. 

Emily tried to hold on, tried to stay awake in case her friends needed her, but the rhythmic beeping of monitors got to her in the end, and her eyes slid shut. 

“ _No_.” 

Emily jerked awake, unsure of where she was. Her eyes focused, and before her she saw Lily, Ben, and Sammy, all sitting in the living room. Emily sat in the recliner, the blue book open on her lap. 

Her heart sank. 

“No, this can’t-- This can’t happen. We did it, we saved him. Why can’t that be it? Why do we have to keep _fucking doing this_?” Lily cried brokenly.

Sammy stood and stalked off, slamming his bedroom door with a loud _bang_.

Ben hung his head. 

They had fulfilled their mission. They’d brought Jack back. They had successfully practiced for the real deal. Nearly two years of her life, gone in the blink of an eye. 

Emily didn’t try to wipe away her tears. It wasn’t anything they hadn’t all seen before.


	21. Chapter 21

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, here we are! If you're reading this, I hope you enjoyed it :)
> 
> Stay safe!

Ben had quietly knocked on Sammy’s bedroom after giving him a few minutes. He went inside a moment after. Emily was holding Lily as she wept, devastated. 

The four of them were pretty low for a while. It was one thing to know they would be returning home, it was another thing to have Jack right in front of them, hooked up to tubes and monitors, but breathing. Safe. 

And then to have to leave him?

Emily couldn’t imagine. 

Sammy and Lily both took two weeks off. Ben carried the show on his own for the duration, although Emily could tell he was struggling, too. She stayed over more often, cooked when Sammy didn’t feel up to it. 

Sammy and Lily had to be coaxed into talking about it. Emily mostly left them alone, though she took care of them as well as she could, quietly letting them know she was there, and she loved them. Sometimes at night, Emily would get up to get water, and find that Lily wasn’t on the couch. But there would be light, peeking underneath Sammy’s bedroom door, and muffled voices inside. 

“Do you think the other Jack is okay? Do you think he’s recovering well?” Ben asked one night as Emily lay beside him, staring at the ceiling. 

“Yeah… I think the other versions of us are taking care of him,” she replied. “Can I tell you something?”

“Of course.”

“I feel jealous of my other self. The one who stayed.”

He sighed. “I get that.”

“But I also feel-- I don’t know, bolstered, I guess. Just by the knowledge that we’ve done it before, and some version of us got that happy ending. We got him back. We got to see Sammy and Lily more unburdened than we ever have.”

He hummed, his fingers lightly tracing circles on the skin of her arm. “I’m worried about them.”

“I know. Me too.” 

Emily didn’t know if Lily told Katie about what happened to her, in those two-years-turned-five-minutes. But she stayed with her for a few days, and when she came back she seemed a little lighter, a little less haunted. 

Sammy still retreated into himself, unwilling to talk much. It reminded Emily too much of those days after the third Sammiversary, and she knew Ben was worried. He was having to curb the instinct to flock to Sammy, to take care of him aggressively until he felt better. But he gave Sammy his space, and slowly, over the course of those two weeks, Sammy started opening up. Just a little. But it was enough. 

Eventually, Ben called a family meeting. 

He stood, while Emily and Lily sat on the couch, and Sammy took the recliner. 

“The work’s not done, you guys. I know that you’re… _grieving_. I get that. But there’s a Jack here, too. And he’s been waiting a long time.”

Lily sighed. “Ben--”

“Wait, I’m not done. We know what we need to do. The book did its job, and we did ours. We just have to do it again.”

“He’s right,” Sammy said, to Emily’s surprise. Ben’s, too, judging from the look on his face. “We can’t keep feeling sorry for ourselves. We have to move on. I know it… It feels like we lost him again, but we didn’t, Lily. We’ll get him back. Again. And this time, we’ll stay.”

Lily held his gaze for a long while. She bit the inside of her cheek, and nodded. “Okay. Yes. You guys are right. Enough is enough. We have work to do.”

Emily sighed in relief. It was like a burden had been lifted from the room, a heaviness that had dissipated. The pain was still there. But the dark cloud was not. 

Ben was right. They could do it again. They had everything they needed, plus all the outside help they could possibly ask for. 

Ben got out his notebook, and they got to work.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading, comments and kudos are beloved by many but especially me, and I will (hopefully) see you next time <3


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